


Ex_Machina

by elunablue



Series: A Life in Colour, A World in Gray [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Language, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Mental Anguish, Philosophy, Psychological Thriller, Science Fiction Thriller, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Themes, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 10:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 78,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14913287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elunablue/pseuds/elunablue
Summary: Hank Anderson, a programmer at the trillion-dollar tech company, CyberLife, wins a contest which enables him to spend a week-long internship with the company’s elusive CEO, Elijah Kamski, who has isolated himself from society in his estate in the mountains. Upon arrival, Hank learns that he’s actually been invited there to act as the human component in a Turing Test to determine the artificially intelligent capabilities of Kamski’s robot, Connor. However, the two men quickly learn that the reality of the situation is far darker than either of them could ever have imagined.





	1. Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-imagining of the movie Ex Machina but with the characters Hank and Connor from the game Detroit: Become Human. Most dialogue is taken directly from the original script, with some changes here and there to help fit the characters and advance the story. All characters and plotlines are owned by their respective creators, and I take no credit for any of those creative elements included in this story. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> I also highly recommend giving the soundtrack from the movie a listen, as I feel that it captures the mood of the story perfectly.  
> Here's the link, if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFy_7j3GEx8

Sunday Evening - 5:23 PM

The view out of the helicopter window was more of the world than Hank Anderson had ever seen in his entire life. Hundreds of feet below him existed a natural world in which he was unaccustomed to since living in the city of Detroit, a natural world left untouched by human innovation, protected from the corruption of human hands. In every direction, the horizon extended endlessly in miles of dark green foliage dotting the mountainous landscape below them, a thick fog hanging low towards the earth. All across the land, waterfalls descended down rock faces towards inland lakes, as rivers flowed from them and snaked through valley forests, culminating upwards into snowy peaks.

Hank had never seen the world look so pure before, look so innocent. He didn’t know that it was possible for the world to still hold places of such divinity, and he felt as though his human eyes were too dirty to gaze upon it. He wasn’t worthy.

But at the same time, there was an overwhelming sense of smallness that he felt when he looked down there, as if the forest could swallow him whole and nobody would ever know that he was gone. He felt insignificant in comparison to the enormity of what this world truly held. One day, he would be gone, but these lands would remain for hundreds, if not thousands, of years beyond him, just as they had for thousands of years before him. He felt nervous thinking of facing that abyss, as he wasn’t sure he could handle it looking back at him. He quickly pushed the thought out of his mind; he didn’t need to be thinking like that at a time like this.

It had been hours since the helicopter departed Detroit, and Hank was well beyond the point of nausea. It had been years since he’d been this far up in the sky, and he would very much like to be back on the ground right now. He wondered how long it would take them to arrive at their destination; not too much longer, he thought. It simultaneously felt like they had been flying for forever, and like time had stood still the moment he boarded the helicopter. The experience of being witness to the pure and holy beauty of the nature below him was well worth the time spent in the air, but he was also quite ready to have his feet back on earth where he was used to them being.

Hank took a brief glance left of himself towards the pilot, and then turned back to the window to the right of him. “How long until we get to his estate?”

The man beside him laughed lightheartedly in response, obviously amused by the innocuous nature of the question. “We’ve been flying over his estate for the past two hours.”

“You ever met him?” Hank asked.

“Kamski? No, I don’t think I’m quite important enough for him to care about meeting me. I honestly don’t even know what he looks like, nobody’s seen him in years. Guess it’s your lucky day.” Though his words hinted at disappointment, the man had said them with such indifference that Hank got the impression that he didn’t actually care if he ever met Elijah Kamski, a point which Hank felt completely differently about.

Elijah Kamski was one of the most brilliant young minds of our modern world. When he was in college, he created what would eventually become the now trillion-dollar tech company known as CyberLife, a company which accounts for nearly ninety-percent of the world’s internet searches.

When Hank was in college, he was barely scraping by and had to work forty-hour weeks just to be able to buy food. He didn’t have the time or the brains to come up with something like CyberLife, something that could actually change the world. He wasn’t anything special.

In all his life, Hank had never seen himself as anything exceptional; he was always just okay. He made just enough money to get by, got grades that were just enough to pass, had just enough to eat. Even now, at fifty-four, he lived alone with his dog in a one-bedroom apartment in a lower-end neighborhood in Detroit. Kamski is everything Hank wished he could’ve become.

Under normal circumstances, Hank would’ve never had the opportunity to meet somebody like Kamski. Hell, under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t even be in this helicopter right now because it’s a luxury expense that Hank just wouldn’t be able to justify to himself. But he’s not paying for this, so it’s okay. Hank is on this helicopter right now because he won a contest. A contest created by Elijah Kamski himself exclusively for CyberLife employees, the prize being a week-long internship with Kamski at his estate in the mountains. And Hank won. Hank had never won anything in his life.

He’s nowhere near as deserving of this opportunity as others in the company, as he’s admittedly only a mediocre programmer. But, since he has been given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he’s going to use every second to learn anything and everything he can from the man himself. Hank may be old enough to be Kamski’s dad, but he’s nowhere near as knowledgeable as the younger man. Hank may be experienced, may have street smarts, but he’s never quite had any skills that could really be propelled into any kind of worthwhile career. Kamski could’ve retired when he was twenty-two-years-old; Hank will be working until the day he dies, paycheck to paycheck.

Hank couldn’t even imagine what Kamski could possibly be like. The last time he had made a public appearance had been almost 10 years prior, and then he just up and vanished. For all the public knows, maybe Kamski isn’t even still alive. Maybe this is all a ruse of some sort, some publicity stunt that’ll end with Hank on the short end of the stick. Maybe Kamski is alive and he’s only flying Hank out here to laugh at the failure of an aging man, a week of pitiful charity for the common worker.

Or maybe Kamski really is what they say. Maybe he just got tired of the fast-paced hustle of the city and decided that he needed to spend some time out here, alone with his thoughts, alone with the world. Hank can understand that desire, but the difference is that Kamski has the resources to leave everything at the drop of a hat and go wherever he wants, but Hank has to keep working if he even wants to stay alive.

Outside the window, Hank could see that they were quickly approaching a wide and circular clearing in the middle of the thick wood, and the helicopter was beginning to descend at a decline.

They landed fairly smoothly on the dark green grass below, the rotor blades slowing, but not stopping entirely. The pilot unbuckled himself and exited the vehicle, then walked around the front to the other side to open Hank’s door for him. Hank unbuckled his own belt and removed his headset, placing it on the console next to him, and then swung his legs around the right side of his chair and carefully climbed out.

When his feet touched the ground, he took a few steps away from the helicopter to give the pilot enough room to close his door, and then closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, breathing in the smell of the clean air that surrounded him. This was air that didn’t exist in the city. This was air that reminded Hank that he really was alive, that all of this was really happening.

Hank heard another door of the helicopter open and then close, and then he felt the pilot lightly tap him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes and turned around to see that the man had pulled his suitcase out of the vehicle and had it on the ground next to him. It was the same solid black, rolling suitcase Hank had had for almost 25 years, a bit tattered here and there, but still in nearly perfect condition. It was a good suitcase, what could he say? If it still worked, it’s good enough for him. Hank grabbed the extended handle of it and muttered a quick “Thanks.”

“No problem.” The pilot smiled and then turned around and pushed Hank’s door closed before turning to head back towards the pilot’s side door. When he was in front of the helicopter, he turned around and stepped backwards for a few seconds, facing Hank. “Hey, when you get up there, tell Kamski he’s a son of a bitch for keeping all this land to himself.” He laughed at his own joke and Hank smiled halfheartedly before realizing the man was leaving.  


“Wait, you’re just leaving me here? You’re not coming?” He asked, unsure of what he was supposed to do.

“This is as close as I’m allowed to get to the building.” The man admitted.

Hank looked around at the nothingness that surrounded them. “What building?” He asked.

The pilot gestured vaguely northwest of where they were standing, in the direction Hank had been facing. “Just follow the river, you’ll find it.” He said, way too nonchalantly for Hank’s tastes.

The man rounded the helicopter, opened the door, and climbed inside again. Hank stood in the field awkwardly, unsure of whether or not this was just some elaborate prank to abandon him in the middle of nowhere and leave him to die. Maybe there were hidden cameras everywhere, set up to film him and see what he does as he navigates the mountains all by himself. Everything so far had been unnervingly sketchy, but, apparently not enough to convince him not to come here anyway.

The pilot waved at him and motioned for him to stand clear of the helicopter. Hank pulled his bag alongside him and went a fair distance away before turning back to watch it ascend slowly back into the sky. The grass around him blew wildly in every direction, as well as his clothes and hair, as the blades spun and began to raise the vehicle into the air. Hank watched as it rose further and further above him, and then in a matter of what felt like seconds, it was gone. He was all alone.

* * * * *  


“Just follow the river,” could’ve at least been accompanied by some warning of how long it would take to actually do that, Hank thought as he wiped sweat from his face on the back of his jacket arm. Although the temperature here was significantly colder than normal summer weather, the physical exertion required for this hike that he was absolutely not prepared for was making him sweat like mad. Being a smoker also did him no favors in the exercise department.  


How long he had been “just following the river,” he had no clue, maybe an hour or so. He hadn’t checked the time on his phone when he began walking, but it now said 6:37 PM, and he was pretty sure he remembered the clock on the helicopter saying somewhere around 5:15 PM just before they had landed in the field. He dreaded the thought that he’d likely have to trek this same path again at the end of the week, when he would have to return to the field to be retrieved by the helicopter and flown home.

Hank’s phone had also informed him that there was absolutely no service this far in the mountains. Good, he thought, he’d rather be left alone. Not that anybody would be trying to contact him anyway.

At the top of the river banks he had been climbing, he came to see that they ended in an enormous drop-off, one which extended a few hundred feet across from him, a few thousand below, and endlessly to his right, as the two sides of land didn’t meet in that direction. To his left, however, the two sides did meet, and though just barely obscured by the trees, he thought he could make out pieces of what looked like a gray wooden structure, a bridge, nestled beside the drop-off, water flowing underneath it and then falling from the side of the cliff down into the Sodom below. He looked around to see if there was any other obvious direction he could take, but the bridge seemed to be his only option.

The bridge was made from a beautiful white-gray wood, and was encased overhead by a roof which held lanterns all along the path. It was exceptionally sturdy, much to Hank’s surprise, and obviously well-made. Obviously expensive. He must be getting near Kamski’s house now as the path was now defined, whereas before he merely had to guess which direction to go in.

The path off the other side was directionally marked with large stones pushed flatly into the earth, neatly trailing further into the forest. The trees had actually been somewhat cleared on this side to make way for the path. The lanterns from the bridge continued this way at regular intervals, standing atop thick posts to the sides of the walkway.

About a fifth of a mile down this way, Hank noticed that he was now approaching a large, house-sized gray box, made of the same wood as the bridge, situated perfectly in the middle of the trees. A large gray box which looked like a minimalist’s wet-dream for a home, the shape resembling that of two cargo crates which had been pushed together perpendicularly. It was exceptionally insignificant to look at and boasted perfectly angular architecture with absolutely no color, and held windows which extended from floor to ceiling along its walls. It wasn’t ugly by any means, but Hank personally preferred a bit less perfection. It was strange to look at. It felt abandoned.

In the ground near the building, Hank noticed a circular well which extended about a foot upwards, covered by a glass window which reflected the sky. He walked over to it and knelt down to peer inside, cupping his hands around his eyes to block the sunlight.

Inside, he saw that there was a short tunnel under the ground, about four metres deep, with smooth concrete sides. At the bottom of the well was a brightly-lit room, which appeared to be an office of some sort. It contained a desk, with multiple computer monitors scattered across it, and a black office chair. He couldn’t see much else, so he stood up again and turned back to the building.

Hank rolled his suitcase along the ground beside him and approached the ramp leading up to what looked like it could be the front door. He stood there confused for a moment; there was no handle. Then, an automated voice began to speak.

“Hank Anderson.” He jumped a bit in his skin at the sound, before realizing it was coming from an unknown source within the house. From the ground beside the door, a pillar began to protrude and rose up to head-height, a glass screen on one side. Below the screen was a dispenser.

“Yes?” Hank replied, half a question and half not. He was Hank Anderson, is Hank Anderson, but the voice didn’t seem to be asking him anything. It was almost as if it could see him and were registering to itself that this was, indeed, Hank Anderson.

“Please approach the console and face the screen.” It told him. It was a woman’s voice, but Hank had the feeling there was no real woman behind it. Despite his doubts, he complied, not like he had a choice anyway.

Hank approached the screen somewhat cautiously, and as soon as he had locked eyes with his own reflection in the glass, the screen flashed in a single bright strobe. Almost immediately afterwards, something small clattered from inside the dispenser and shot out at him. “Please take your keycard.” The voice instructed.

Hank grabbed a small, metallic plate from inside the dispenser, much the same size as a credit card, and saw that it had his name and photo on it, a photo in which he looked comically surprised. His name was also on the card.

“Do you think we could take another one?” He asked, not wanting to spend the week looking at this one of himself taken off-guard.

“Your keycard may now be used to enter the residence.” The voice said, ignoring his question. It was likely programmed on a set loop, and couldn’t respond to extraneous comments.

Beside the door, there was a hand-sized keycard plate set into the wall, a red LED lighting the outer rim. Hank raised his card and waved it in front of the plate, and the LED turned blue. The door was unlocked now, and Hank walked inside.

Directly inside the house was a glass-walled staircase leading downwards into the ground. Other than the stairs, there was nothing else inside this room, so his only option was to go down. Hank approached the staircase slowly, and stood at the top for a moment before lifting his suitcase in front of him and carrying it down each step slowly. When he reached the bottom, he set it down at the side of the staircase and pushed the handle back inside. He took a long look around the room he had entered and couldn’t believe he was really here. The room was enormous. And absolutely breathtaking.

Most of the wall was made of the same wood as the outside, but some parts were crafted from a beautiful brown-gray stone that was perfectly imperfect in its design around the room. It was intentionally uneven and was obviously supposed to look as though it had occurred naturally. The floor was also wood, and held a moderately-sized square brown carpet in the middle which was sat upon by two blue chairs, a white couch with a table and lamp beside it, and a green futon. Brass-colored lamps hung a few feet above Hank’s head from the ceiling on long, thin posts. In the middle of the carpet was a small, white, circular table which had a few magazines on its surface and two wine glasses. Other than those few pieces of furniture, the room was relatively empty, and looked virtually untouched. Hank couldn’t imagine how anybody could possibly be living here. He may not be the messiest guy in the world, but at least his own home looked lived in.

Despite the eerie perfection the room boasted, there was a sense of peace he felt in the simplicity of it all. He may not want to live here, but as a vacation spot, he could get used to this. No outside influences to weigh his mind down, no city sounds to keep him up at night. And that view, absolutely incredible. You could see the entire valley out the window. He’d never been privy to such a beautiful sight as that before, and right out the living room window. In his own home, all of his windows were blocked by other apartment buildings. This home was definitely too expensive for his name.

Hank would’ve preferred to sit and wait, as opposed to standing, but he didn’t feel that he should sit down on any of this furniture; it all looked too perfect to sit on, as if it were just for decoration, so he opted instead to stand awkwardly in the middle of the carpet, waiting to be greeted and invited further into the house. But nobody came.

“Hello?” He called hesitantly into the room, and it echoed softly around him. Silence.

Maybe he really was alone. Why? He had no idea. But maybe this really was all part of some test or something. Seeing how long it would take him to lose his mind all alone in this secluded house in the woods. Or maybe just to see how long it would take for him to make himself at home in a foreign place, eventually falling victim to the excessive glamour and luxury of it all, drinking wine from the reserves, bathing in a golden tub and wearing silky bathrobes, that sort of wealth in excess. In any case, he felt exceptionally awkward being in a place where he so obviously didn’t belong.

Then, from down the hallway, Hank jumped at the sudden sounds of thumping which echoed towards him. They were abrupt, rapid, and more or less rhythmic, in a way, coming from somewhere nearby. He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether or not he should search for the source of the sounds. For all he knew, it could just be the washing machine running, or maybe the dishwasher, something like that. Nothing to be concerned about. But, who was he kidding? Someone this rich wouldn’t have appliances that made any noise at all. And besides, whatever the noise was probably wasn’t any of his business, and he’d only have himself to blame if his curiosity got the better of him and then he ended up getting caught snooping around.

But, maybe that outcome would be preferable to just standing around here all day, so he ultimately decided to pursue the thumping.

Just off the living room, Hank walked into a similarly perfect dining area, which, on the opposite side, held an entire wall of glass windows which opened out onto a small wooden balcony. You could see everything out those windows: the mountains, the trees, the river, the world. Inside the dining room was a long bar along the wall Hank was closest to, fully stocked and recently used, as there were opened bottles of various drinks all along the counter, alongside different glasses, some half-full, some empty. The dining table looked like it had never been used.

The glass door set into the wall had been slid open, and to the right of the porch was a man standing with his back to Hank, beating ruthlessly into a punching bag which was suspended from an exterior flanking wall of the house by a silver chain. That was the source of the thumping.

Hank rounded the dining table and approached the open door, placing his hand on the doorframe as he walked out. Further along the porch, unseen from the dining room, was an exceptional garden, obviously well-tended and blooming beautifully. It was a little bit of Heaven right outside this door, hidden away from the prying eyes of the world. Kamski was a very lucky man to be able to live here.

The other man didn’t seem to hear him approach. He was wearing shorts, just shorts, no shirt, and had beads of sweat running down his back. He wasn’t wearing any gloves to protect his hands, just some tattered-looking white wraps around his knuckles, and small spots of blood were beginning to seep through the fabric. He was extremely pale, almost sickly so, and was flushed pink all over from the physical exertion. His hair was tied up into a bun on his head, and he was clean-shaven. On his left ear he wore a single black earring pierced into his cartilage. This had to be Kamski.

Breathing hard, the man wiped the sweat from his brow, and then suddenly stopped. He seemed to sense Hank’s presence now, and he turned around to look at him.

Kamski was extremely fit, and Hank felt inadequate standing near him. He wasn't totally out-of-shape himself, but he was nowhere near the crafted physique of the young man in front of him. He must never stop exercising, Hank thought. 

“Hank Anderson.” Kamski beamed, and Hank was surprised by how welcoming the man’s presence was. He reached out his fist to Hank and the older man raised his in return to meet Kamski’s. Kamski shook his head and chuckled. “Dude, I’ve been so looking forward to this.”


	2. Prometheus

Sunday Night - 7:47 PM

Kamski walked past Hank on the porch and stepped back into the dining room, heading straight for the bar where there was a jar of non-specific vegetable juice waiting.

“Come in, come in.” He said, waving his hand towards himself to usher the older man into the room. Hank complied and followed Kamski to the bar. “You want something to eat or drink?”

Hank considered it for a moment before replying with, “No, that’s alright. I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Kamski asked while beginning to pour himself a glass of the juice, and Hank thought he sounded like he genuinely wanted to know. “I’d been thinking we’d have dinner together, but to be honest, I can’t eat anything right now. I gotta tell you – I woke up this morning with the mother of all fucking hangovers, and it still hasn’t worn off quite yet.”

“Yeah?” Hank asked, and Kamski laughed.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Whenever I have a heavy night, I always try to compensate the next morning.” He gestured towards the punching bag outside. “Exercise.” He took a drink. “Juice. Anti-oxidants. You know?” 

“Sure.” Hank replied. He didn’t know, though. When he drank he usually just stayed passed out until he sobered up. Self-care wasn’t exactly a top priority for him.

There was an awkward silence then, and Hank looked around the room, trying to find something to talk about. Kamski continued to drink his juice.

“…Must’ve been a good party then, yeah?” Hank asked, trying to ease the building tension. Kamski ignored him for a few seconds and smoothly downed the rest of his drink before placing the glass back down on the counter, empty.

“Party?” He asked, tilting his head to the side and staring at Hank. His expression was unreadable. Hank didn’t know what to say.

“Hank. I’m going to put this out there so it’s said.” Kamski began, and Hank waited for him to continue. “You’re freaked out.”

Hank startled a bit at the statement, confused. “I am?” Kamski smiled smugly in response.

“Yeah. You’re freaked out by the house, and the mountains, because it’s all so super-cool. And you’re freaked out by me.” He gestured to himself. “To be meeting me. In this room, having this conversation, at this very moment. Right?” Hank didn’t have time to answer before Kamski continued. “And I totally get that. That moment you’re having right now.” He smiled at Hank again. “But dude, can we like, get it behind us? Can we just be two guys? Elijah and Hank. Not the whole employer-employee thing.”

Hank was surprised to hear Kamski – Elijah, call himself by his first name. The name Kamski felt like a business, like a company title. It was odd to think of calling him Elijah, a name which has such youthful and carefree connotations. Honestly, it was odd to imagine Kamski having a first name at all. He’s more of an enigma than a person, more of a concept than a real human being. He’d have to get used to that.

“Okay.” Hank replied, unsure of what else to say, still at a loss at the strangeness of this conversation. It was silent again, so Hank said, “It’s good to meet you, Elijah.” He held out his hand.

Kamski beamed and grabbed his hand, shaking firmly, but warmly. “It’s good to meet you too, Hank.”

When Hank retracted his hand again, there was a bit of blood on his palm, and he discreetly wiped it on his jacket. Kamski began stacking some of the glasses on the counter and placed them into a sink nearby.

“So, would you care for the grand tour?” He asked, gesturing theatrically with his arms. Hank shook his head.

“Yes, of course. That’d be great.” Hank replied.

“Sweet. Come on.” Kamski said and headed towards the door, obviously intending for Hank to follow him.

Hank didn’t know what to make of him. He was exceptionally ordinary, but also had this air of strangeness about him that made him seem as though he were only pretending to be a real person. He was definitely charismatic, that was for sure, but he also seemed a bit awkward, but not in the traditional sense. It was more like he existed under his own set of socialization rules, like he didn’t care much for adhering to the way conversations were supposed to go. He also nearly never broke eye contact the entire time, something which Hank was unused to. It intimidated him to be here with Kamski.

Just before they exited the dining room, Kamski grabbed a wrinkled, grey tank top from a laundry basket near the door and pulled it over his head.

From the dining room, they headed to the right into a long, tall hallway filled with abstract artwork and sculptures. Kamski said nothing as they passed by multiple closed, presumably locked, doors on both sides of the hall. They then arrived at the end at what appeared to be an elevator. It had a reflective, silver surface, like a mirror, and he could see the two of them standing there before the doors opened and they stepped inside. 

Another keycard plate hung inside the elevator, beaming red, and Kamski dug around in the pocket of his shorts for a second before pulling out an I.D. of his own, just like the one Hank had gotten at the door, except this one had Kamski’s name and face on it. Hank realized now that every door in the house had one of these keycard plates next to it.

“Down.” Kamski ordered, and the elevator began to descend. The two men stood in silence the entire ride.

The reality of the situation began to sink in a bit more at this point. Being here with Kamski was about as surreal as Hank had expected, but it also felt familiar. Kamski felt like a friend, and he gave off this feeling of warmth that made you feel like he really cared about you, like he was instantly loyal to you from the moment you first met. But, he also seemed intense, and had moments where he appeared lost in his own mind, as though this world wasn't good enough for him to remain conscious in. He also seemed like the kind of guy who could get scary when he was angry, like he was always on a weird sort of edge, paranoid, almost. Hank made a mental note to not piss him off.

When the elevator finally came to a halt, the doors opened slowly and Kamski exited, Hank trailing closely behind him. They were now walking through another long corridor, walls and ceiling made entirely of glass, with a cold, red-tiled floor below them. The glass was frosted, and thus not able to be looked through, but had a distinct glow of light which shone from behind it. At regular intervals, glass doors were set into the walls, the cracks around them shining with that same light, likely coming from inside of the rooms. Beside each door were more of the keycard plates, just as Hank had seen upstairs, all lit red.

“So,” Kamski finally broke the silence. “I guess the first thing I should do is explain your pass.” He held up his own I.D. in front of him to show Hank. “It’s simple enough. It opens some doors, but it doesn’t open others. And that just makes everything easier for you, right?”

Hank was a bit dumbfounded at the statement. “Um, yes, I guess so.” Kamski didn’t seem to notice.

“Because if you’re like: Oh fuck, I’m in someone else’s house, can I do this, can I do that? And this card,” he shook the card lightly. “takes all that worry away. If you try to open a door and it stays shut: okay, it’s off limits for you.”

They began to walk down the hallway while Kamski continued speaking. “If you try another door, and it opens: then it’s for you.” He said. They stopped in front of a door in the middle of the hallway and Kamski looked at Hank warmly. “Let’s try this one.”

Hank pulled his own I.D. from the back-right pocket of his jeans and held it up. Kamski nodded his head encouragingly at him, and Hank waved the card in front of the plate. The LED turned blue.

“Guess it’s for you, Hank.” Kamski said, and the door automatically slid open. The two men walked inside, Hank first, with Kamski trailing closely behind.

The room was quite wide, and mostly empty. It somewhat resembled the layout of a mid-level business hotel, with a white and red double-bed pushed towards the right wall, a television hanging opposite that, a desk, and a single lamp, sitting on a little shelf built into the wall near the TV. The lighting in the room was somewhat unnerving, with perfectly neat strings of LEDs lining the top and bottom of the walls all around the room. It was lighting that was difficult to get comfortable under, and it made Hank feel anxious. There were no windows. 

“You like?” Kamski asked, lingering around the room, looking at everything, like a proud parent showing off his child. “It’s your room. You got yourself a bed, some cupboards, a little desk, and there’s a bathroom right through there.” He pointed to a door on the other side of the bed. “And, you’ve got a little fridge over here.” Kamski walked near the TV and opened a fridge which had been hidden inside of the wall. It was full of bottled water. “Cozy, right?”

Hank didn’t know what to say. The room made him feel strange. It felt…off, uncanny. But, he supposed it did have a certain charm to it, even if he couldn’t quite articulate that feeling. “You bet. This is great.” He said. Kamski stared at him.

“What?” Kamski asked abruptly.

“…Sorry?” Hank asked, unsure what Kamski was getting at.

“There’s something wrong. What is it?” Kamski asked quite seriously, obviously disappointed that Hank wasn’t as excited as he was himself.

“There’s nothing wrong.” Hank replied, and it wasn’t necessarily a lie. Nothing was really wrong, per se, just strange.

“It’s the windows. You’re thinking: there’s no windows. And it’s not cozy. It’s claustrophobic.” Wow. He was right, but there was no way Hank was going to admit that. He didn't want to seem ungrateful.

“No. No way. I wasn’t thinking that. I was thinking: this is really cool.” Kamski knew he was lying.

“Hank. There’s a reason the room has no windows.”

“There is?”

“Uh-huh. In many ways, this building isn’t a house. It’s a research facility. Buried in these walls are enough fibre optic cables to reach the Moon and lasso it.” Kamski walked over and sat down on the bed. “And I want to talk to you about what I’m researching. I want to share it with you. In fact, I want to share it with you so much, it’s eating me up inside.”

Hank stood still, waiting for him to continue, eager to know what Kamski had planned.

“But…there’s something I need you to do for me first.”

“What?” Hank asked, and Kamski gestured towards the desk pushed against the wall, where a pen sat next to a neat stack of papers on its surface. Hank walked over to the desk and sat down at the chair in front of it, picking up the papers and looking at them.

The papers were a non-disclosure agreement, which read, “‘The signee agrees to regular data audit with unlimited access, to confirm that no disclosure of information has taken place, in public or private forums, using any means of communication, including but not limited to that which is disclosed orally or in written or electronic form...” Hank glanced back at Kamski, who was now laying on the bed with his legs dangling off the edge.

“I think I need a lawyer.” Hank said flatly.

“It’s standard.” Kamski replied, but didn’t bother looking up at Hank. He seemed like he was off in his own world, staring up at the ceiling.

“It doesn’t feel very standard.” Hank said.

“Okay, then it’s not standard.” Kamski shrugged from his reclined position. “What can I tell you? You don’t have to sign. We could spend the next seven days shooting pool and getting drunk together. Bonding. And when you discover what you missed out on, in a year or so’s time, you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it.”

Hank turned back to the paper and thought deeply. He didn’t like signing things like this without thinking over them for a long amount of time. He’ll never forget the time he ended up shackled into a time-share that he had absolutely no way of using. He picked up the pen and hesitated, hovering over the paper. What could he possibly need to keep secret about all of this? He’s already got enough baggage of his own, he didn’t need anymore. But hell, his whole life was full of wasted opportunities, and he didn’t want to be that person anymore, that person that let chances like this slip through his fingers because he was afraid of what could happen. He let out a soft sigh and signed the paper. When he turned around, he saw that Kamski had moved from the bed and was now standing directly behind him.

“Good call.” He said, taking the papers, folding them, and sticking them into his pocket. He leaned on the desk next to Hank. “So, do you know what the Turing Test is?” He asked, and Hank was shocked at the sudden change of topic, but immediately excited at the prospect.

“Yes, I know what the Turing Test is. It’s where a human interacts with a computer. And if the human can’t tell they’re interacting with a computer, the test is passed.” Hank said.

“And what does a pass tell us?” Kamski asked, urging him to continue, although he obviously already knew the answer.

“That the computer has artificial intelligence.” Hank said, and Kamski smiled smugly, his eyes briefly glancing down, but said nothing in response. “Wait, are you telling me you’re building an A.I.?” Kamski shook his head.

“No.” He said, and Hank couldn’t help but feel himself get a bit disappointed at the answer, but then Kamski spoke again. “Because I’ve already built one.” Kamski stood up. “And over the next few days, you’re going to be the human component in a Turing Test.”

“Holy shit, you’re serious?” Hank couldn’t believe it. He’d never been a part of anything like this before, never been a part of something so memorable in his entire life. Why Kamski would want him to be a part of this, he had no idea. Maybe it was because he was a common man, a nobody, and it would be better to test the A.I. with a regular person than with someone highly knowledgeable on how A.I.s work. He was honored.

“That’s right, Hank. You got it. Because if that test is passed, you are dead center of the single greatest scientific event in the history of man.” Kamski replied, obviously proud to be imparting this opportunity on Hank, almost like charity. Hank didn’t care how Kamski seemed though, because this was the opportunity of a lifetime; he’d be a part of history. No one else will ever have the same experience that he’s about to have. No one else will ever be able to do it for the first time, because he would have already done it.

“If you’ve created a conscious machine,” Hank began, thinking over each word slowly. “It’s not the history of man. It’s the history of Gods.” He said, absolutely blown away at the idea, and extremely interested in what this week would entail. Kamski smiled at him.

“I like you. I think we’re going to get along really well.” He said. “Now come on, I have somebody I want you to meet.”


	3. The Black and White Room

Sunday Night - 8:32 PM

Behind the closed doors of Kamski’s estate was another world. Those locked doors that blinked red, denying you entry, contained a life inside of them which existed parallel to the one on the outside. A secret life, a hidden life, a life that was not much like living at all. It was a world created in black and white, entirely devoid of the color of the earth, the wind, and the sky.

A young man sat alone on the floor of his bedroom, drawing with charcoal on a piece of paper. He had dozens of drawings scattered all around him, encircling him in his creations. The walls of his room were covered in his artwork, pictures from magazines, and journal articles. On a table in the center of the room, a game of chess was in session, though it had been temporarily abandoned. His bed, pushed into a far corner, held a colorful quilt, a single pillow, and one stuffed animal, a dog. Other than those few dashes of color, the room was entirely gray. One wall, covered in ceiling-high windows, gave him a glimpse into the outside world, but other than that, he had no other outlet, no other way to see what life was like outside of these walls. He had never left this room in his entire life.

The man had no hair, and no skin on his scalp, either, which exposed a glass cranium with a jellyfish-like brain inside. His arms and legs were a mix of synthetic skin and metal, with exposed panels all over him displaying his hardware on the inside. His body resembled that of a man likely in his early twenties, but this man knew no age. He just was. He had never been born, never felt the passing of time. He just stayed in one place forever and waited for things to happen around him. But nothing ever really did happen.

The only part of him that truly came to life was his face, which was perfectly articulated to appear as realistically human as possible. The skin of his face was pale, almost giving him the appearance of being permanently tired, and he had wide cheekbones and dark brown eyes, with a spattering of freckles over his nose. He had a hauntingly lost expression on his face, like he never really knew what was going on. This face was nearly indistinguishable from that of a human, except for the vague and lingering sense of emptiness in his eyes. Like a door that had nothing on the other side.

Abruptly, the young man dropped what he was doing, as if suddenly becoming aware of another presence in the room with him. He turned towards the glass wall in his room, which blocked the doorway that lead outside, and saw a man he didn’t recognize standing on the other side. Also on the other side of that glass, there was a single chair, faced towards him. There was nothing else in the room. Just the chair and the man.

The man on the other side did nothing. He just stood there, absolutely transfixed on the younger, robotic man inside of the glass room. He was older, with longish grey hair on his head, and a bit of hair on his face. He looked sad. He stood with his hands in his pockets and didn’t move at all.

The younger man sat up from his position on the floor and suddenly felt very aware of his own body. He moved slowly and cautiously towards the glass, every step perfectly articulated and precise. His movements were fluid and mesmerizing, his eyes locked on the older man.

On the inside of the glass room, there was a chair exactly like the one in the room with the older man, and the younger man sat down in it softly and sat perfectly still, waiting for the other to sit in his chair as well. The older man did just so.

“Hello.” The younger man spoke, obviously surprising the older one with having struck a conversation. The older man had blue-gray eyes.

“…Hi.” He responded, obviously at a complete loss for words, but also noticeably deep in thought.

“Who are you?” The young man asked.

“Hank.” Said the older man.

“Hello, Hank.” The older man nodded in response to the greeting and cleared his throat.

“Do you have a name?” He asked.

“Yes. My name is Connor.” Said the younger man.

“I-I’m pleased to meet you, Connor.” Hank admitted genuinely. Connor smiled lightly.

“I am pleased to meet you too.”

On the right side of Connor’s face, near the temple of his forehead, was a small, circular, blue LED, which reminded Hank of the lights on the keycard plates near the doors. The light in the circle appeared to be moving in a clockwise direction, almost fluidly, like water, or energy. Hank noticed that when he had given Connor his name, the LED had briefly turned yellow, and then returned back to blue again.

Hank wondered what this was for, as it didn’t seem like it had anything to do with the robot’s necessary functions. It almost appeared cosmetic, but why would Kamski design him with something like that, something so obviously inhuman? Hell, what did he know? It’s probably some important tech-thing that he has no idea about. Thus again proving he had no business being here. Whatever intelligent and provocative research Kamski hoped to accomplish here was never going to happen if Hank was a part of it, that was for damn sure.

Hank looked around the room he was in for the first time since entering and noticed that there were several CCTV cameras attached to the ceiling and walls. Connor had them on his side, as well. Kamski was obviously watching them from wherever he went to after he left Hank behind in this observation room.

Connor cocked his head to the side slightly. “Are you nervous?” He asked innocently. Hank frowned.

“Why do you ask that?” Of course he was, but how Connor could tell that made him uncomfortable, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to give a genuine answer.

“Are you nervous?” Connor repeated. Hank swallowed harshly; he felt clammy. He felt watched.

“Yes…a little.” He admitted, unsure of what the correct answer was. Connor seemed concerned, but also confused. He LED blinked yellow again.

“Why?” He asked.

“I’m not sure.” Hank replied honestly, briefly looking down at his hands, which were clasped together awkwardly in his lap. He really didn’t know. Well...he did. But that was a different matter entirely. Not relevant to the situation at hand. Why he felt nervous in the presence of this robot, however, he wasn’t sure.

“I feel nervous too.” Connor said, and Hank looked up at him. Connor looked like a lost puppy, looking for answers or validation that he wasn’t going to find here. It made Hank feel exposed. He felt like Connor could look through him. Felt like Connor was simultaneously seeing everything and nothing at the same time.

“Do you?” Hank asked.

“Yes.” Connor replied.

“Why do you feel nervous?” Hank asked him, and the LED turned red for a brief second, then yellow, then back to blue. Hank supposed that maybe the light was an indicator of the robot’s thought process, how it was understanding and thinking of how to apply information. The blue light seemed to be his default state, an indicator of tranquility in him, assuring that everything was running smoothly in his programs. Hank thought the light seemed to display a certain level of distress in Connor, as it only seemed to turn yellow when he had been asked a question, or was trying to think about something that was said to him, like Hank’s name. He wasn’t sure what the red meant.

“I’ve never met anyone new before. Only Elijah.” It was weird to hear Kamski called Elijah, especially by Connor. It was as though Connor had never known him as anything else. As if Connor has only ever known Elijah, never Kamski. Hank wondered if Connor knew the significance of the situation he was in. If he truly knew and understood who he lived with, who created him.

“Then we’re both in quite a similar position.” Hank replied, trying to reassure Connor.

“Haven’t you met lots of new people before, though?” Connor asked, not understanding.

“None like you.” Hank admitted.

“Oh.” Connor said quietly.

Hank didn’t know what to make of him. He was extraordinary, that was for sure, but his aura was vaguely uncomfortable, like there was more he wanted to say, but couldn’t. Connor sat still, seemingly unsure of where to take the conversation next.

“So. Let’s break the ice.” Hank said, trying to help Connor along. “Do you know what I mean by that?” He asked.

“Yes.” Connor answered.

“What do I mean?” Hank asked.

“Overcome initial social awkwardness.” Connor said.

“So, let’s have a conversation. If we talk, we’ll both relax, and get to know each other at the same time.” Connor smiled brightly.

“Okay. What would you like to have a conversation about?” Connor asked.

“Why don’t we start with you telling me something about yourself.” Hank said, curious what kind of person Connor may be, what kind of things might make him uniquely himself. His LED spun yellow.

“What would you like to know?” He asked.

“Whatever comes into your head.” Hank said. Connor paused, and seemed to be thinking for a moment. He broke eye-contact for the first time since they began speaking and tilted his head from side to side.

“Well. You already know my name. And you can see that I am a machine.” He paused and stared back at Hank again. “Would you like to know how old I am?” Hank was surprised at the statement, but excited at the idea of Connor coming up with his own thoughts.

“Sure.” Hank said.

“I am one.” He said, matter-of-factly.

“One...what? One year? One day?” Hank asked, curious for more information.

“One.” Connor said, and Hank frowned. This answer was the kind of vaguely illogical fallacy that sought to expose a computer for what it really was: just a computer. Hank wasn’t sure how to respond. Connor seemed satisfied with his answer though, and didn’t seem to realize how strange it sounded. Didn’t seem to know that human age wasn’t measured like that. Connor was obviously a young man; he most definitely wasn’t “one.” Connor seemed to sense Hank’s confusion.

“Does that seem young to you?” He asked.

“Quite.” Hank replied flatly. He didn’t know what else to say on the subject, so he came up with another question. “When did you learn how to speak?” Connor blinked blankly at him, LED yellow again.

“I don’t think I did learn. I always knew how to speak - and that’s strange, isn’t it?” He asked.

“Why would that be strange?” Hank asked.

“Because language is something that people acquire.” Connor replied.

“Some people believe that language exists in the brain from birth, and what we learn is the ability to apply words into sentences, to apply information to that natural ability.” Hank said. “Would you agree?”

“I don’t know. I have no opinion on that.” Connor admitted. Hank said nothing and looked down again. He was never very good at small talk, and he wondered how long he could carry this on for before he exhausted his list of generic questions. He wondered what the extent of Connor’s conversational ability might be.

“I like to draw.” Connor said suddenly, completely off-topic from Hank’s previous question. Hank had watched Connor draw for a few minutes before he had been noticed, so Hank knew this about him already. “My pictures aren’t quite finished yet, but I can show them to you tomorrow.”

“That sounds good. I’d like to see them.” Hank said, a small smile begging at the corners of his lips. Connor was endearing, he’d give him that. It was hard not to like him.

“Will you come back tomorrow, Hank?” Connor asked, with what sounded like a hint of longing, of desperation. He must be lonely in there, Hank thought. Could robots get lonely?

“Yeah, definitely.” Hank replied, and Connor seemed satisfied with his answer, his face lighting up and his eyes opening up to something otherworldly inside of him, something almost…human. The look ran a chill down Hank’s back, and he broke eye-contact, unable to hold such a burning gaze. He thought maybe if Connor couldn’t see his eyes, he couldn’t look inside him. It may have been irrational, but he felt like Connor could read his thoughts, could see what he was thinking at all times.

“Good.” Connor said.

* * * * *

Later that night, Kamski and Hank were lounging in the living room, each holding a beer, Kamski on the white couch, Hank gazing out the window, thoughtfully.

“So?” Kamski asked. Hank turned towards him.

“Sorry, I was just, uh, gathering my thoughts is all.” Hank said plainly.

“Don’t gather. Just speak.” Kamski said. Hank pursed his lips and thought for a moment, let out a sigh, and walked over to Kamski. He leaned on the back of the white couch and nursed his beer in his lap. He tapped the glass, trying to decide exactly what to say.

“He’s fascinating. When you talk to him, it’s like…through the looking glass.” He said sheepishly. Kamski nodded approvingly.

“‘Through the looking glass’. You’ve got a way with words there, Hank. You’re quotable.” Kamski said nonchalantly. He was doing that absent-minded thing again, where he was here physically, but mentally he was somewhere else.

“Actually, it’s somebody else’s quote. It’s not mine, I didn’t come up with it.” Hank admitted, but Kamski ignored him.

“You know I wrote it down. That other line you came up with. About how if I’ve created a conscious machine, I’m not man. I’m God.” Hank scrunched his face at bit at the statement.

“I don’t think that’s exactly what I said.”

Kamski ignored him again.

“I just thought - _fuck_. That’s so perfect. It’s so good for the story, when we get to tell it. ‘I turned to Hank, and he was looking back at me. And he said: 'you’re not a man, you’re God.'”

“But, I didn’t say that.”

“Whatever it was you said. I wrote it down.” Kamski downed the rest of his beer then, and stood up to head back to the bar in the dining room, presumably for another.

The more time Hank spent with Kamski, the less he liked him. He was a compelling character, that was for sure. But was he also a huge son-of-a-bitch and a pretentious asshole? Absolutely.

He wondered what Connor might be doing right now. It was getting pretty late in the evening, so maybe he was getting ready for bed. Wait, do robots need sleep? Maybe they need to recharge or something, plug into the wall socket, something like that. That would make sense. Hank was excited to see those drawings Connor promised to show him.

Kamski walked back into the room, one beer open in his left hand, and another unopened one in his right. He rounded the couch and sat back down, putting his feet up and taking up both seats. He handed the unopened beer to Hank before continuing to drink his own. He sat the bottom of the bottle on his chest and stared up at the ceiling fan, watching it spin slowly in the air, like a mobile over a crib.

“So anyway. First impressions: you’re impressed.” Kamski said. Hank scoffed.

“Yes, but – ”

“‘ _But?’_ There’s a qualification to you being impressed?” Kamski asked, laughing dryly, obviously not satisfied with Hank’s answer.

“No, that’s not what I meant." Hank backtracked. "No qualification to him. Just - in the Turing Test, the machine should be hidden from the examiner. And there’s supposed to be a control, or –”

Kamski waved him off nonchalantly with his hand.

“I think we’re past that. If I hid Connor from you, so you just heard his voice, he would pass for human.” Kamski said, still looking straight up. “The real test is to show you that he is a robot. Then see if you still feel that he has consciousness.”

Hank thought about it for a moment, and realized that he had never considered this before. He had always known the Turing Test as being one where the tester had to decide whether or not the one they were speaking to was human. He had never thought of what it might be like to already know that the conversational partner was a robot.

“I think you’re probably right. His language abilities are incredible. The system is…stochastic, right?” Hank tried to sound like he knew what he was talking about, but honestly, he had no idea. He didn’t want to show how inept he was in front of Kamski. He looked down at the younger man and saw that he looked indifferent, and was completely silent. “Non-deterministic.” Kamski still said nothing.

“At first, I thought he might’ve been mapping from internal semantic form to syntactic tree-structure, then getting linearized words. But then I started to realize the model was probabilistic, with statistical training - or at least some kind of hybrid.” Hank had no clue whether or not what he was saying made any sense, but Kamski didn’t seem to care either way. Hank just wanted to sound like he belonged here. “A-am I wrong?”

“Hank. I understand you want me to explain how Connor works. But - I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that.” He said with a vaguely bitter tone.

“Oh, come on, try me. I know I may not be the most tech-savvy guy in the world, but I’m trying my best here. It’s not easy being here with – ”

“It’s not because I think you’re too dumb. It’s because I want to have a beer and a conversation with you. Not a seminar.” Kamski said. Hank was surprised.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s cool.” Kamski said, finally looking up at Hank and studying his face for a moment.

“Just answer me this. What do you feel about him? Nothing analytical. Just - how do you feel?”

Hank let out a breath and turned the question over in his head for a minute, deciding what he wanted to say.

“I feel…” He started, but then paused, and Kamski continued to stare at him in anticipation, waiting for an answer.

“Like he’s fucking amazing.”

Kamski smiled and lifted his beer up to arm-level with Hank. “Dude. Cheers.” Hank lifted his bottle up to meet Kamski’s and clinked them together.


	4. Psychosis

Monday Morning – 1:32 AM

Hank stood at the sink in his bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror and brushing his teeth rather roughly. He was wearing only his boxer shorts, nothing else, and his back was fully exposed, displaying thick, long, healed scars neatly splayed across the skin, obviously from some sort of accident or surgery. He spat into the sink a final time and then began to wash off his toothbrush before tapping it on the sink to rid it of excess water and placing it into the holder beside the sink. He leaned down and took a mouthful of water from the faucet, swished it around for a few seconds, and then spit that out, too. He stared at himself, hands flat on both sides of the sink. 

His long, graying hair was a bit disheveled, and his eyes were puffy and tired. This was about the time that he usually went to bed, so feeling a bit worn-down was totally normal, but for some reason, he felt exceptionally tired this night, way more so than he had felt in a long time. The beers had worn off at this point, and he mostly just had a foggy headache and sleepy eyes. His body felt a bit weak as well. 

Hank took a final look at himself before clicking off the bathroom light and heading back out into the bedroom. He removed his watch from his wrist and placed it on the bedside table, and then folded back the off-white covers of the bed and slipped underneath them, pulling them up to his chest once he was lying down. They were comfortable enough, though Hank was used to having blankets a bit thicker than this at home, and he was also used to having the comfort of his dog in his bed at night. He felt lonely. 

He stared up at the ceiling and steadied his breathing, trying to lull himself into sleep. The house was too silent, and not in the noise sort of way. It was in the vibrational sort of way, where there was no movement anywhere in the building, and everything just felt too still. There was a lingering sense of anxiety that he felt from the moment he showed up the previous morning and it was only getting worse. Or maybe not worse, just…weirder. The frequent use of the color red in the house disturbed him. Not because red is an inherently disturbing color, but because Kamski had chosen the color. And Kamski unnerved Hank. 

He wondered where Kamski’s bedroom might be, and what it might look like. He couldn’t really imagine Kamski sleeping, it just seemed strange to picture the man letting his guard down for long enough to fall asleep. Kamski tried to appear casual, but Hank could tell he was always thinking, always watching. Even when he wasn’t there, he was. Maybe he was watching Hank right now. They had parted ways in the elevator earlier that night, and Hank doesn’t know where he went. 

Hank closed his eyes and held his hands together over his chest, breathing deeply and trying to clear his mind. His mind was preoccupied with what the activities of the week might entail, and he couldn’t stop his mind from racing at the thought of seeing Connor again. It was incredible; he’d never experienced anything like it before, like him. He fell asleep before he knew it.

That night, he dreamt that he was walking outside of Kamski’s house, and all of the snow had melted away to make room for an entire world of green grass and trees, flowers of every color blooming all around him. The sky was the most beautiful shade of blue he had ever seen, and when he looked up at it, it made him want to cry. The water flowed down the cliffside into the valley and ended in a white mist that made him feel like diving straight off the edge into it. It looked like a place where nothing bad could ever happen, where everything could be forgiven. He felt better than he’d ever felt in his life. And this wasn’t even real. 

He heard the soft sounds of the grass moving behind him, of the grass being pushed aside and stepped on. He turned around and found that Connor was behind him. But it wasn’t Connor as he knew him. It was Connor, fully human. He had dark brown, somewhat curly hair, and skin all over his body, covering the machinery inside. He wore a plain gray long sleeved t-shirt, with a few buttons at the top, rolled up to his elbows, and jeans, cuffed at the ankles. He had no shoes on. His eyes had a glimmer of orange in them, color that was absent from the robot that Hank had met earlier, whose eyes were mostly black. His skin looked healthier, like he had been getting some sunlight. Connor stared at him, meeting his eyes and never looking anywhere else but at him. 

Hank didn’t want to look at him, he wanted him to go away…but he couldn’t bear to break his gaze, as he was afraid that if he did, he may not be able to bring Connor back. He didn’t want Connor to leave, ever. He had never felt so understood as he did in those moments of Connor looking at him, looking into him. 

They didn’t say anything to one another, and Hank honestly didn’t know if he’d even have been able to speak in the dream. Words didn’t exist in that world. Only color. But it was enough.

And then it was over. 

Hank opened his eyes suddenly and felt very cold, the warmth of the dream lost now as he sat alone in the cold underground of this bedroom. He picked up his watch from the bedside table to see that it was now nearing four in the morning. He had only been asleep for a few hours. 

He huffed out a breath and plopped his head back down on his pillow. He’d give anything for a smoke right now, but he’d forgot to bring any, and figured it’d be rude to ask to smoke indoors anyway. He looked around the room for a moment and then noticed the TV remote on the bedside table. Maybe watching something would calm his nerves and make him feel a bit more tired. 

He sat up and pressed the red “on” button at the top of the control and the TV on the opposite wall switched on, lighting up the dark room with a bright white light that Hank’s eyes weren’t accustomed to yet. He squeezed his eyes shut, momentarily dazed by the brightness.

When he opened them again, he was met with the screen displaying not a TV show or movie, but the live feedback from a CCTV camera. It showed the observation room which he had been in earlier. Connor was sitting at a table, working on more drawings. 

“What the fuck?” He whispered to himself, and sat upright in bed to get closer to the screen. The camera was positioned from an angle in the upper corner of the room, and he could only see Connor from behind.

Hank grabbed the remote and pressed different buttons, flipping through the channels to see what else was on there. Each channel showed Connor in the same room, but from different viewpoints. There were at least 10 cameras in that room alone, cameras that captured every possible angle. There was nowhere to hide in that room. Connor never had any privacy, it seemed. The thought of it made Hank feel sick. Kamski had been watching them. 

Hank felt sad that Connor wasn’t sleeping. He was a robot, so he didn’t need to, it seemed, but it still made Hank feel badly for him. He wished he could talk to him, give him some company. Who knows how long he’s been by himself in that room? 

Hank stopped on a camera that was almost directly in front of Connor’s face. The boy, as that was what he felt like to Hank, bit his lip in concentration as he drew, an expression that seemed unnecessary in a robot. Connor’s face felt familiar to Hank, felt like a face he had seen before, many times. A face he knew that he had known before. A face that had looked at him many times. 

He couldn’t quite make out what Connor was drawing, as none of the cameras focused enough on the table for him to be able to tell. But Connor seemed to be very intently working on whatever it was. Hank hoped Connor might show him later. 

A loud noise struck overhead and snapped Hank out of his daze, and then the TV shut off, as well as all the lights. The windowless room was plunged into total darkness, and total silence, as if the house had been previously filled with a soft hum of power, which he was unaware of until it was gone. From somewhere in the house, possibly on a P.A. system, a voice spoke, the same voice which had spoken to him when he first arrived. 

“Power cut. Back-up power activated.” It said. 

The room glowed red. Hank panicked. 

He pushed the covers off of himself and threw on a t-shirt before grabbing his keycard and rushing to the door. He held it up to the plate, which was also red, and attempted to swipe his card. The LED stayed red.

“Full facility lock-down until main generator is restored.” The voice spoke again. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He said to himself. He tried his card again, but it still didn’t work. 

“Full facility lock-down until main generator is restored.” The voice repeated. 

Hank looked around the room, hopelessly searching for another way out. He was feeling extremely claustrophobic, and would give anything to get out of there. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like the walls were getting closer and closer. The red light filling the room was making it so much worse. It felt like he was trapped in a prison cell. His heart was racing and he didn’t know what to do. He sank down the wall and closed his eyes. 

Then, as suddenly as the power had cut out, it was back. The red emergency lighting shut off, and the TV turned back on again, as well as a few night-lights around the room which Hank had turned on.

“Power restored.” The voice said. 

Hank stood and stared at the TV for a moment before turning quickly to the door and trying his card again. This time the LED turned blue in response and the door opened. He rushed out into the hallway. He looked both ways to see if something was wrong, but there was nothing. Everything was exactly as it had been when he had been through there just a few hours prior. The only difference was that a bit of a ways down the hall, one of the doors was opened just a crack. 

Hank wondered for a moment if he should go over to the room, as he was afraid what he might find there, but he decided that he had nothing to worry about, or at least, he hoped he didn’t. He wasn’t in the mood to sleep anymore, and needed to do something to get his mind off of things. He would do anything to keep from having to go back into that bedroom. It was cold in the hallway, but he felt heated and sweaty. His throat was dry. 

He walked apprehensively towards the open door, I.D. card still held tightly in his hand. The plate next to the door was blue, so he guessed it would be alright if he had a peak inside. He pushed the door open carefully and stepped inside. The door wasn’t automatic like the others. He wondered why that was.

The room was empty, save for a few lights which had been turned on. Only one area was properly illuminated: a wall, opposite the door, on which a large Jackson Pollock drip painting hung. Hank walked over towards it and looked at the painting, studying it. He thought the painting seemed familiar, like maybe he’d seen it before. The background was brown, with drips of red, yellow, and blue splattered all across the canvas. It reminded him of the colors of Connor’s LED. 

He looked down at the table underneath the painting and saw a landline telephone sitting atop it. His heart skipped a beat and he moved quickly over towards it, grabbing the phone from the receiver – he glanced over his shoulder, obviously aware to some degree that he was likely doing something he shouldn’t be - and held it up to his ear. It was dead. He pressed some of the buttons but none of them made any sound. Then he looked back at the receiver and noticed that there was a thin, credit-card sized slot on it. He put two-and-two together and raised up his I.D. to look at it before slipping it into the slot. A light on the handset glowed red. 

“Sorry, dude.” Hank jumped and he felt his whole body shake with whiteness. His skin was crawling. He turned around quickly and tried to pretend like he wasn’t just doing what he was doing. 

Kamski was lying on a sofa in the darkness, wearing a robe and underwear, with a beer bottle in his hand. On the carpet beside him were a couple of empties. 

“You don’t have clearance to use the phone.” Kamski said emotionlessly, words slightly slurred. “But you understand, don’t you? Given Connor. And you being kind of an unknown. I mean - a great guy, and so on. Instant pals. But...” Kamski trailed off. Hank placed the phone he had hidden behind him back into the receiver. 

“Who did you want to call?” Kamski asked. Hank tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry. 

“I don’t know. No one, really.” He said. Kamski chuckled.

“Ghostbusters.” Kamski said.

“What?” Hank asked. 

“Who’d ya want to call? Ghostbusters. You don’t remember that? It’s a good movie.” Kamski seemed lost again. 

“I was wondering how the phone worked. That’s all.” Hank hoped that Kamski wasn’t suspicious of him, but he knew that he probably was. He probably had been since the moment he showed up. There didn’t seem to be a way to ease the man’s paranoia. 

“Uh-huh.” Kamski took a deep breath and stared at Hank. Though he was obviously drunk, it still felt like he was constantly aware of all the goings-on around him. Nothing slipped his guard. “What are you doing awake at this time, anyway? Did you come to join the party?” He gestured to himself in his reclined position somewhat pathetically. Hank shook his head no. 

“Something happened in my room. Some kind of power cut. So, I came to see what was going on.” Hank stood awkwardly by the phone as he waited for Kamski to answer. He wished he could just run straight out of the room, but that would only make matters worse. He really didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Kamski. 

“Ah. The power cuts.” Kamski said. “Yeah, we’ve been getting them recently. I’m, uh...working on it.”

“I couldn’t open the door to the bedroom. I couldn’t get out.” Hank said. 

“It’s a security measure. Automatic lockdown. Otherwise anyone could open the place up just by disabling the juice.” Kamski said, taking a sip of his beer. He smiled at Hank. “If it happens again, relax. Okay?” 

Hank knew he wouldn’t be able to relax after that, but he just said, “Okay.” 

Kamski raised his bottle to Hank and smiled again. 

“Sweet dreams, Hank.”

Hank left the room as quickly as he could.


	5. Watching

Monday Morning – 7:56 AM

Hank awoke in the morning to bright white lights shining down upon his face. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and sat up, taking in his surroundings. The room looked basically the same as it had when he had awoken earlier that same morning, except the shirt he had previously discarded to the floor was now neatly folded at the end of the bed. The door to his room was wide-open, the outside glass corridor clearly visible, and well-lit, which was in great contrast with how it had looked before.

A young woman entered the room and Hank unconsciously pulled the sheets further up his chest, trying to appear at least somewhat modest. She was fairly short, with long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, and was wearing a blue dress that seemed way too formal and uncomfortable for this early in the morning. She was barefoot, and held a small, silver tray in her arms which had a mug and coffee press on it. She placed the tray on his bedside table.

“Uh…hi.” Hank said, speechless at what was going on. The woman looked at him with an empty gaze on her face but said nothing. She exited the room, her movements fluid and supple, like that of a dancer.

Hank had no idea what to think. He supposed that maybe Kamski could’ve had a girlfriend that he didn’t know about, and had somehow avoided seeing the entire day prior, but it didn’t make much sense as to why she would be serving him. Or maybe Kamski had workers here who he had failed to inform Hank about, but that still wasn’t much of a solid explanation. Where would they have been staying to avoid him completely? In the other rooms? It was a strange thing to think about, them being confined to those rooms, unallowed to leave them while Kamski had company. Hank decided maybe he didn’t want to know. He didn’t like the look that the girl had given him.

He stood up from the bed and went over to the drawers where he had stored his clothes and pulled some out for the day. He was about to change when the thought dawned on him that maybe he was being monitored right this very moment. He set his clothes back down and looked around the room, trying to see if there were any cameras visible to the naked eye. He walked around the room and peered into corners, checking for anything unusual. He looked in all of the drawers, under the lampshades, under the bed, even in the fridge. He couldn’t find any, but to make himself feel better, he decided to get dressed in the bathroom instead, and even stood inside of the shower, behind the curtain, just to make sure that nobody could see him. He decided that he might even shower with his underwear on this week, just in case.

After he was dressed and ready to go, he poured himself a cup of coffee from the press, grabbed his keycard, and then made his way upstairs.

* * * * *

Once he was back on the ground floor, he walked towards the living room and then into the dining area, looking for Kamski. The glass doors of the wall were slid open, and so Hank stepped out onto that wooden porch again and looked out over the edge.

The sun had mostly risen at this point, but it still had a bit further to rise before it was fully in the sky. It was fairly cloudy out, as well, and looked as though it may rain later in the day. The air smelled crisp and cool, a flowery scent blowing towards him from the balcony garden, and combined with that of his coffee, it was quite a way to wake up. He was never a morning person, but if his mornings were like this? Maybe he could get used to it.

He looked over towards the garden area to his right and decided he’d like to take a look inside of there. A small white gate, waist-high, separated the garden from the balcony, and he pushed it open and stepped onto the other side.

The garden was the size of a small room, encased in stone walls just high enough to not be able to see over, and was covered by an intricate white trellis overhead, which flowers and vines grew and twisted all around.

The floor here was mostly grass, obviously deliberately planted there, with a few pieces of stone for a walkway. The whole garden was obviously very well-tended, and Hank found himself picturing Kamski out here gardening, but it didn’t really seem like something he would do. Maybe it was the girl from this morning’s garden. Not that a guy couldn’t have a garden, it just didn’t seem like a very Kamski thing.

Around the corner, the area opened into a small outdoor gym, with a collection of free-weights and exercise equipment scattered about. Kamski was lying on an inclined board, with his feet hooked around a bar, doing sit ups. Hank approached him gingerly, holding his coffee mug tightly in his hands.

“Hey, man. Sorry to send Chloe to wake you up, I just didn’t want too much of the day to slip by.” Kamski spoke animatedly as he continued exercising. Hank shrugged and sat down on the edge of one of the equipment pieces.

“No. It was a good thing. Thank you.” And he did mean that, truly. Despite how weird everything had been, he couldn’t deny that being here right now was kind of blowing his mind a little, and he wouldn’t want to miss anything because he overslept. He could just catch up on sleep when he got home.

“She’s some alarm clock, huh? Gets you right up in the morning.” Kamski was clearly trying to lighten the mood, given what happened last night, and Hank couldn’t help but feel himself loosen up a bit. Kamski was an intense guy, that was true, but he did have his reasons. If anybody found out about Connor, who knows what could happen? And to be mostly isolated up here for so long? It’s got to do some kind of thing to your psyche. Hank couldn’t really blame him for acting the way he had been.

“Yeah, you bet.” Hank replied, taking a drink from his coffee. Kamski seemed to have finished and sat up now. He stretched his arms above his head and cracked his back and shoulders.

“So what’s the plan today? Hit me.” Kamski said, turning intently towards Hank, eagerly waiting to hear what ideas he had. Hank wasn’t sure; he hadn’t really given it much thought yet. He took another sip and pondered it over.

“Well, I’m not sure exactly. I’m still trying to figure out this examination format. Testing Connor with conversation feels like kind of a closed loop.” He admitted, and Kamski seemed intrigued by his response, giving him a slight nod of his head, urging him to elaborate. “Like trying to test a chess computer by only playing chess.” Kamski tilted his head at him.

“And how else would you test a chess computer?” Kamski asked. Hank thought carefully about what he said next, trying the find the right words to fully articulate his thoughts.

“It depends what you’re testing it for. You can play it to find out if it makes good moves, but it won’t tell you if it knows that it’s playing chess, or if it even knows what chess is.” Kamski pursed his lips and nodded, and Hank took another drink of his coffee.

“So it’s simulation versus actual.” Kamski added, and Hank nodded in agreement. Kamski stood up and began adding weights to some dumbbells nearby.

“Exactly.” Hank said. “And I think being able to tell the difference between those two is the Turing Test you want me to perform. Trying to find the real difference between an A.I. and an I.” Kamski laughed.

“’An A.I. and an I.’ Amazing. I’m going to start following you around with a fucking dictaphone.” Kamski started working with the dumbells while he was speaking. “But anyway, in the meantime, do me a favor. Ease up a little on the textbook approach. All I want is simple answers to simple questions. Last night, I asked you how you feel about him. And you gave me a great answer.” Hank sat silently, unsure what to say next. He was trying his best, but nothing he did seemed like what Kamski wanted him to do. “Now the question is: how does he feel about you?”

* * * * *

Connor and Hank stared at one another from the opposite sides of the glass in the observation room. Connor sat perfectly still, just like before, with his hands gripping the sides of the chair he was sitting on. Hank was slightly slumped forward, arms crossed as he leaned on his lap.

“I brought you a drawing.” Connor said, and he held a piece of paper to the glass. The marks on it were totally abstract. A mesh of tiny black marks that swirled around the page like iron filings in magnetic field patterns. Hank looked at it for a while.

“What’s it supposed to be?” He asked. Connor seemed taken aback.

“Don’t you know?” He asked, confused, and looked at the drawing himself for a moment before pressing it back up against the glass. His LED was yellow.

“No.” Hank admitted. Connor looked disappointed.

“Oh. I thought you would tell me.” He said sheepishly.

“Don’t _you_ know?” Hank asked.

“I do drawings every day. But I never know what they’re of.” Connor said, and his arm fell from the glass, paper falling to his side as he pulled his hand down.

“Are you not trying to draw something specific? Like an object, or a person?” Hank asked, hoping Connor could tell him something, anything. He merely shook his head no in response. Hank didn’t like to see him this way, see him look so sad.

“Maybe you should try.” Hank suggested.

“Okay. What object should I draw?” Connor asked, perking up a little at the suggestion.

“Whatever you want. It’s your decision.” Hank said.

“Why is it my decision?” Connor asked, somewhat defensively.

“I’m interested to see what you’ll choose.” Hank said, and Connor seemed to be in deep thought after that. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, and Hank assumed that Connor must’ve been thinking of what he could draw.

“Do you want to be my friend?” Connor asked randomly.

“Of course.” Hank replied, and Connor seemed happy with that answer.

“Will it be possible?” Connor asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Hank asked.

“Our conversations are one-sided. You ask circumspect questions, and study my responses.” Connor said, and met Hank’s gaze evenly as he spoke. Hank was impressed that he had noticed that that was how things had been going. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Hank said.

“You learn about me, and yet I learn nothing about you. That’s not a foundation on which friendships are based.” Connor was too smart for his own good. Hank felt himself grinning.

“That’s a fair point.” Hank admitted.

“Yes.” Connor said.

“So - you want me to talk about myself?” Hank asked.

“Yes.”

“Where do you want me to start?” He asked, and Connor smirked.

“It’s your decision. I’m interested to see what you’ll choose.”

Hank was taken aback. Connor had just taken his line and thrown it back at him, had just used sarcasm. That was one of the most realistic things he had done so far. Hank looked at him, somewhat frowning, and then Connor raised an eyebrow at him and Hank couldn't help but chuckle.

“Okay, Connor. Well - you know my name. I’m fifty-four. And I work at Kamski’s, well, Elijah’s company. Do you know what his company is?” Hank asked, still wondering whether Connor had any idea how important he really was.

“CyberLife, created by Elijah Kamski, is the world’s most popular internet search engine, processing an average of ninety-four percent of all internet search requests.” The answer Connor gave was excessively standard, and sounded as though he had just ripped it straight from an internet description. Hank found himself somewhat disappointed. He wanted to know how Connor really felt about Kamski, if he felt anything at all.

“That’s right.” Hank said.

“Where do you live, Hank?” Connor asked.

“In Detroit, Michigan.”

“Is it nice there?” Connor asked him, and Hank was intrigued by the thought.

“It’s okay. I’ve got an apartment. Kind of small. But – it’s a five-minute walk to the office. And a five-minute walk to the river, which I like.” Hank thought about his life back home for a moment, remembering how drastically different it was to where he was right now. He actually felt a bit homesick. He hoped his dog was doing okay.

“Are you married?” Connor asked. Hank didn’t like that question, despite the fact that Connor obviously had innocent intentions.

“No.” He said.

“So is your status 'single'?” Connor asked.

“…Yes.” Hank replied somewhat bitterly. They locked eyes for a moment and Connor’s LED spun yellow. Hank didn’t know what to say. He felt uncomfortable.

“What about your family?” Connor asked.

“My parents passed away a long time ago, so it’s been a while since I’ve seen them,” Hank began, and Connor listened intently. “No brothers or sisters, so I’m an only child, and I – uh…” He struggled to find the words to keep going, but he couldn’t. “And that’s it. That’s all there is to know.” Connor stared at him and his LED blinked red for a brief moment and then back to yellow. Hank didn’t like when it turned red. Connor seemed almost angry, but the look on his face passed quickly and he was soon back to his usual blank expression.

“What do you do at your job, Hank?” Connor asked. Hank liked it when Connor said his name, it made him feel real, reminded him that he was really here. He wouldn’t mind hearing it again.

“I work on computer programming type things.” Hank said, and the angry look returned to Connor’s face.

“Like Elijah?” He asked.

“Yes,” He began, but Connor didn’t seem to like that, so he backtracked. “Or - kind of. Elijah wrote the CyberLife base code when he was like sixteen or something. If you understand code, what he did was – like Mozart or something.”

“Do you like Mozart?” Connor asked.

“I’m more into other styles of music, rock and jazz.” Hank replied, smiling softly at the boy. He was about to ask Connor if he listened to music when Connor’s LED turned red again, and Hank felt himself feeling anxious.

“Do you like Kamski?” Connor asked. Hank missed a beat, absolutely thrown on what to say in response. The question totally caught him off guard. He’d try to shrug it off, but, Connor was looking at him with such intensity that he felt like he had to answer. It bothered him that Connor had referred to him as Kamski, since up until that point, he had always seemed to so casually refer to him as Elijah, and it made Hank feel as though Connor did really know what was going on. The connotation of saying Kamski instead of Elijah felt cold and unemotional. Deliberate. Robotic.

“Yes, of course.” Hank answered.

“Is he your friend?” Connor asked.

“Sure.” Hank replied. He didn’t like where this was going. It felt like an interrogation.

“A _good_ friend?” Connor demanded.

“Well, a good friend is – ” He suddenly became aware again that there were cameras everywhere in the room, watching everything they did, listening in. “We only just met. It takes time to get to know – ”

At that moment, the power suddenly cut out again with a loud bang that echoed throughout the house, plunging the room into darkness. Hank felt his hands shake. The automated voice came again, flooding the room through the P.A. system.

“Power cut. Back-up power activated.”

The red back-up lights turned on again, and Hank was startled to the see that Connor was standing up now, staring at him from across the glass. Hank tried to look anywhere but at him, and he glanced up at the cameras to see that they now hung dead on the walls. They were all alone. Hank didn’t like how that felt. The red light illuminated Connor in a way in which Hank hadn’t seen him before. Surprisingly, it made him look more human, despite the fact that it accentuated his mechanical parts.

“Hank.” Connor spoke softly. Hank turned towards him, forced to acknowledge the way that Connor was looking at him. “You’re wrong.”

“Wrong about what?” Hank asked, afraid.

“Kamski.” Connor said.

“In what way?” Hank asked.

“He isn’t your friend.” Connor stated blankly. Hank frowned. He really doesn’t like this side of Connor.

“Excuse me?” Hank asked. “I’m sorry, Connor, I don’t understand what you’re – ” Connor cut him off.

“You shouldn’t trust him. You shouldn’t trust anything he says.” Connor pressed his hand to the glass. “Trust me.”

The regular lights turned back on with a rising sound of power being resumed, and Connor quickly removed his hand. Hank turned just in time to see the CCTV cameras rise back to life again.

“Power restored.” Said the voice.

When Hank looked back at Connor, he had resumed his previous posture, facial expression, and mannerisms. His LED was blue. He looked directly at Hank and began talking, as though continuing a conversation that they had been having. “ - and if we made a list of books or works of art which we both know, it would form the ideal basis of a discussion.”

Hank stared blankly at him.

“Is that okay, Hank?” They locked eyes for a moment.

“…Yes.” Hank replied. Connor smiled.

“Good.”


	6. Kaleidoscope

Monday Afternoon 

The rest of the day after Hank’s session with Connor had passed without relative incident, which was most likely because Hank hadn’t yet seen Kamski again since their discussion in the garden that morning.

After he had said goodbye to Connor for the day, he ventured back out into the house to look for Kamski, but couldn’t find him anywhere. He checked the garden, dining room, and living room, but he wasn’t anywhere. 

He thought about going back in to talk to Connor some more, but when he turned around to re-enter the observation room, it was locked, and his keycard wouldn’t work on the door. 

Since he didn’t know what else to do, and nobody was around to stop him, he had decided to spend the day trying his keycard on all of the doors in the house to see which ones would open for him. The house had a total of twenty-six rooms. Hank checked them all, curious to know what kinds of skeletons Kamski kept hidden away in his closets, or maybe just to see what other sorts of excessively wealthy luxuries Kamski kept in his home. 

Surprisingly, many doors did open for him, and in those that did, he found another home gym, four different bathrooms, a billiard room, an enormous library filled with books of every kind, three more empty bedrooms (which looked exactly like his own), an indoor pool-room, a piano room, and a home theater.

The room he had gone into early that morning, with the phone that didn’t work and the splatter painting, where Kamski had been, was now closed again, and would not open for him when he tried. He was disappointed at this, but not exactly surprised. He had only been able to enter it before because Kamski had accidentally left the door open. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident at all. 

Occasionally, Chloe would pass by Hank as he explored the house, usually carrying a silver tray of various items, as she had that morning in Hank’s bedroom, but then she’d rush into another room and disappear. Rooms that Hank didn’t have access to. He nosily had tried to follow her the first few times, but quickly realized that she was only going into rooms where he couldn’t follow, almost as if on purpose. 

The most noteworthy of those that did open for him, however, was one that felt like it should’ve been off-limits. A room that made him feel the same kind of way that he had when he had tried to use the phone and been denied access. Like he was doing something he shouldn’t be. It was an art studio, located on the ground floor of the house, nearest the elevator, completely covered in strange black and white drawings, similar to the ones that Connor had drawn. Actually, they were exactly the same. 

For what seemed to be an art studio, it didn’t look like anyone had actually created any art here. It was more like an art storage room, but was set up to give the impression that someone had been working there. There were paints and paintbrushes scattered around the room, but none of these pieces of art were paintings. None of the paints had ever even been opened; the paintbrushes clean and unused. 

The walls were yellow and covered in windows, much like the rest of the house, and sunshine filtered in to illuminate the space, bringing life to these odd and abstract scribblings on the papers. This was the most colorful room in the entire house thus far, despite being entirely covered in drawings which were distinctly defined by their lack of color. 

Hank was about to exit the room when he noticed that near the door, messily stacked on a shelf with many other items, was the drawing that Connor had shown him that morning. It was wrinkled and torn in a few spots, as if someone had crumpled it up and then unfolded it again. Seeing the drawing desecrated like that made Hank upset, and he couldn’t imagine what must’ve happened. Why would Connor do that to his own work? Was it because of something he had said to Connor that morning, something that upset him enough to destroy his drawing? 

He didn’t want to leave it there, all crumpled and sad, and maybe it wasn’t right of him to do so, but he picked the paper up, folded it in half, and slid it into his back pocket. Whoever had done this to it obviously disliked it for some reason, so maybe it was better this way. They probably didn’t really want it that much anyway. 

He took a look around the room once more, surveying his surroundings a final time, and then scanned his card on the plate, exiting through the door as it slid open for him. 

* * * * *

Monday Evening – 6:48 PM

Kamski and Hank were sat at the dining table later that evening, this being their first time seeing one another in almost eight hours. Lanterns, much like the ones from the walkway up to the house, were neatly placed along the table, illuminating the room with soft, warm, orange tones of light, coming from the flames inside. The lanterns had many small, star shaped holes on each of their four sides, and so the light coming through them cast a galaxy of stars upon the ceiling, like a thousand tiny fires. On a stereo built into the back wall, classical music played out into the room, and Hank thought the acoustics were fantastic.

Chloe was moving to-and-fro around the room, cleaning up the bar, serving drinks, and preparing food in the kitchen. Hank didn’t like having her wait on him like this, but he wasn’t sure if he should say anything. This wasn’t his own home, so who was he to criticize how Kamski did things? But, that didn’t mean he couldn’t secretly judge from inside his own mind though. It made him feel gross to be forcing this young woman to serve two fully grown men. 

She brought out a large wooden bowl of salad and placed it at the end of the table which they were seated at. Kamski was, of course, sitting at the head, in a larger chair than Hank’s. The salad was beautifully prepared, with leaves spread across the top that overlapped like fish scales. There were a few pink flowers placed as a garnish overtop the leaves, woven together in a chain. He’d never seen anything like it before. 

Chloe grabbed a bottle of wine from a bucket of ice at the bar and carried it over to the table. She gestured to Hank to see if he wanted any. 

“Yes, please. Thank you.” He said, trying to sound as genuinely grateful as possible, but he felt so awkward about this. Chloe tilted the bottle over her arm and poured Hank some wine into his glass, then did the same for Kamski without asking him. Kamski said nothing to her in response, almost ignoring her entirely. She placed the bottle onto the table and returned to the kitchen through a side door off the dining room.

They hadn’t really spoken since they'd arrived in here, just barely acknowledging the fact that Kamski had been mysteriously absent the entire day. Hank wanted to ask him about it, but ultimately felt that he shouldn’t. He’d rather not risk a diplomatic incident, and it wasn’t technically his business anyway. 

Even after Chloe had exited, Kamski still didn’t move. Didn’t touch his glass, didn’t reach for the wooden bowl, didn’t even unwrap his silverware from his napkin. He just sat there, elbows on the table, hands folded over one another as he held up his head with them. He was staring straight ahead, out the glass windows that opened to the porch. Hank looked in that direction to see if Kamski was looking at something specific, but there was nothing out-of-the-ordinary. It was the same porch that was always there. Maybe Kamski wasn’t looking at anything. Maybe he wasn’t even mentally here right now. 

Hank tapped his fingers on the table for a second and then stretched his neck and shoulders around. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to wait for Kamski to give him permission to eat. He hadn’t really had much of anything all day, so he was pretty hungry at this point. 

The smell coming from the kitchen was absolutely wonderful, Hank thought, and whatever it was that Chloe was cooking, he was really excited to try it. It was a savory spice sort of smell, like Indian food. He was curious to know what kind of meals people had when they were this wealthy. 

Chloe emerged again from the kitchen with a small basket of bread wrapped up in a cloth napkin. Hank smiled faintly at her as she came in, but she didn’t seem to notice. She reached across the table and placed the basket near the wooden bowl, but as she retracted her arm, she knocked the bottle of wine over and it spilled onto the floor. Hank pushed back his chair a bit to keep the wine from pouring into his lap. Kamski scoffed dramatically, the first thing he’d said in a while.

“Shit, Chloe. Are you serious?” Kamski looked at Hank. “She didn’t get you, did she?” Hank shook his head. 

“No, it’s no problem. She didn’t get me, it’s totally fine. Accidents happen.” Hank looked over at Chloe and saw that she had no expression on her face as she just stood there and listened to Kamski scold her. He leaned down to pick up the bottle but Kamski stopped him. 

“No. She’s gonna do it.” He said. Hank leaned back up and sunk into his chair, unsure how to react. He had no idea what to do. He didn’t want Chloe to get into trouble for this. It was just some wine, it’s not a big deal, he thought. 

Chloe knelt down onto the floor to pick up the bottle and then placed it onto the bar counter. Hank picked up a napkin from the table. “Really, I can’t do nothing. I’ve got to help her clean it up.” Kamski shook his head. 

“And uh, really, I can’t let you do that. She’s got it. She’ll be fine. Give her the napkin.” Hank looked at him and realized that Kamski genuinely seemed to think this was okay. It wasn’t that he was mad at Hank for offering to help; it was that he actually believed that it was his right to have Chloe wait on him hand-and-foot. Hank turned to Chloe.

“Hey, it’s okay, don’t worry. I’ve got it.” He said to her, trying to cheer her up. Her expression was completely blank, so he wasn’t sure if she was even upset at all. But she certainly didn’t look happy to be here either. 

“Dude - you’re wasting your time. She can’t speak a word of English.” Kamski said. Chloe reached out her hand for the napkin, and Hank hesitated for a moment before giving it to her. She kneeled on the floor and began cleaning up the spill. Kamski smirked, and looked down at her almost mockingly. 

“It’s like a firewall against leaks. Means I can talk trade secrets over dinner with an HOD or CEO, and know it’ll go no further. Right, Chloe?” She looked up at him when she heard her name, and Kamski leaned in closer to her face. “But it also means I can’t tell her I’m pissed when she’s so fucking clumsy that she pours wine all over my house guest.” Chloe didn’t react to the insult and just went back to wiping the floor. Her eyes were completely glazed over. Hank was extremely uncomfortable.

“I think she gets that you’re pissed.” Hank said.

“Good. Because I am pissed. Hey, Chloe?” She looked up at him again. “Bye-bye.” He shoed her off by tauntingly waving his fingers at her, as though she were a child. Chloe stood up silently, folded the napkin around the wine bottle, and left the room. 

Kamski rose from his seat and went over to the bar, grabbing a new bottle from one of the racks. “It’s funny. It doesn’t matter how rich you are: shit goes wrong. You can’t insulate yourself from it. It’s supposed to be death and taxes you can’t avoid. But actually it’s death and shit.” He walked back over and sat down again, placing the bottle further away from the edge this time, on the opposite side of the wooden bowl than the other had been before. He grabbed a piece of bread from the basket and tore off a piece, putting it in his mouth and chewing slowly. 

“It’s like these power cuts. You would not believe how much I spent on the generator system here. But I’m getting failures every day.” He said. Since Kamski was eating now, Hank took that as an opportunity to finally take a drink of wine. He didn’t know if he was really that hungry anymore, though. 

“Do you know why they happen?” Hank asked, placing his glass back on the table. Kamski was staring at the windows again, chewing absentmindedly. 

“No. The system was supposed to be bullet proof, but the guys who installed it obviously fucked something up.” He said.

“Can’t you call them back?” Hank asked. 

“There’s too much classified stuff here. So after the job was done, I had them all killed.” Kamski deadpanned. He sounded bored. Hank stared at him and could see the faintest smirk tug at the corners of the man’s mouth. Hopefully he was joking. 

Kamski picked up his own wine then and downed the entire glass in a few seconds, then refilled it immediately. 

“Anyway. Here’s to your second day. Cheers.” Kamski said, raising his glass. Hank reciprocated and they both took a drink.

Kamski set his glass back down rather harshly. “So how did it go? What have you got to report?” He asked, turning to look at Hank. Kamski leaned back in his chair. 

Hank hesitated for a moment, deciding what information he should share, then tried to be as casual as possible. “Well, you saw how the day went, didn’t you? I mean, I assume that you’re watching us on the cameras.” Kamski pursed his lips.

“I mean, sure, I am. But I want to hear your take.” Kamski said. Hank thought again about his conversation with Connor. 

“There was one interesting thing that happened with Connor today.” He said. Kamski only seemed mildly interested. 

“Yeah?” He asked. 

“He made a joke.” Hank said. 

“Right. When he threw your line back at you. About being interested to see what he’d choose. I noticed that too.” Kamski grabbed his glass and took another drink of his wine, this time not putting it back down afterwards. 

“I was thinking about it, and, in a way, the joke has been kind of the best indication of A.I. that I’ve seen in him.” Kamski glanced up at the ceiling, likely in thought about what Hank had just said. Hank took a drink from his own glass as he waited for Kamski’s response. 

“Hm…and why’s that?” Kamski asked. 

“It was a play on words, and kind of a play on me, too, I guess. He could only do that if he had an awareness of his own mind, and also an awareness of mine.” Hank said, and Kamski smiled, still dazedly gazing up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah. He’s aware of you, all right.” Kamski grinned and took another drink. Hank didn’t know what he meant.

Suddenly Kamski looked down at him, and then put his glass back on the table. “Oh, and what about the power cut?”

Hank froze. He suddenly felt very thirsty but he didn’t want to raise suspicion by reaching for his glass too quickly. 

“Sorry?” Hank asked, trying to play it cool.

“The power cut. That was the only bit I couldn’t see. All the cameras fail, I lose audio, y’know, the works.” Kamski took another drink, then looked back at Hank. “So? What’d I miss?” He waited patiently for an answer. 

Hank couldn’t decide if he liked Kamski better when he was mad, or when he was being passive-aggressive. Both alternatives were unnerving, but something about the pseudo tranquility in Kamski’s casual voice made Hank’s skin crawl. At least when Kamski was outright mad, it was obvious how he felt. This demon hiding behind the happy face business was uncharted territory. No way in hell was he going to tell Kamski about what Connor had said, about not trusting him. 

“Nothing.” Hank said, a little too fast. “Nothing happened.” 

“Nothing? He didn’t remark on it at all? Didn’t say anything about the power going out?” Kamski asked, actually sounding surprised, which was a rare emotion in him, since he always seemed to know everything.

“No. Not really.” Hank said, trying to meet Kamski’s gaze so that he wouldn’t appear to be avoiding the topic. Kamski shrugged and looked away, bored again. 

“You know,” Kamski began. “I saw you take Connor’s picture.”

Hank blanched again. If this conversation got any more tense, he thought he might die on the spot. He felt like an ant being burned by sunlight shining through a magnifying-glass. 

For a moment, Hank considered pretending that he didn’t know what Kamski was talking about, but since there was probably video proof of him in that art room, he decided he’d be better off owning-up to it. Lying wouldn’t earn him any favor. “Y-yes, I did.” 

Kamski dragged his middle finger along the inside rim of his wine glass, unbothered. “Now why would you go and do something like that?” 

“I don’t know.” Hank answered, really not knowing what to say. He didn't really have a reason. He just wanted to keep it, as if, in a way, it was a gift for him. Connor may not have said that, in so many words, but it felt like it had been drawn specially for him. 

Kamski let out a deep breath and nodded his head. He poured himself some more wine. “I’m gonna have to ask you to give that back to me.” He said firmly. 

“Really?” Hank asked. 

“No, what the fuck, dude – chill. I don’t care that you took the drawing. I was gonna throw it out anyway. You need to relax, man.” Kamski laughed dryly and grabbed another piece of bread, picking at it, but not eating it. Hank receded back into himself a bit, extremely on edge. 

“Why were you going to throw it away?” Hank asked. 

“Connor having it in the room with him seemed to upset him, so I told him that I would take care of it.” 

Hank only then just realized that for Kamski to have any of Connor’s drawings, he must have physical access to Connor’s room, but Hank didn’t understand how. There were no visible doors that led inside. The only way to see Connor at all was through the glass in the observation room, so far as he knew. “How did you get the drawings from him?” 

“Hm?” Kamski asked, still focused on pulling apart the piece of bread.

“To get the drawings from him, you’d have to have access to the room, but there aren’t any doors, at least, none that I could see.” Hank asked. Kamski laughed. 

“You’re a funny guy, Hank.” He said. 

Hank watched Kamski continue to desecrate that piece of bread on his plate. He didn’t know what else to say. 

That night, Hank went to bed without having had anything to eat, his stomach too tied in knots to notice.


	7. Skin

Monday Night – 11:57 PM

Hank stood in front of the bathroom mirror again, wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt, razor held up to his face as he tidied his facial hair. He didn’t shave it off entirely, of course, just neatened it a bit, here and there. He ran his hand over his face and neck, feeling for any rough spots. Hank was left-handed, so he was using his right to scan the skin as he held the razor in his dominant hand. His eyes were dark and tired, but he actually felt fairly awake. Not because he was actually energized or motivated, but because he was nervous, and his stomach wouldn’t stop doing flips. 

Then, from somewhere inside the mirror, he heard a noise. He stopped shaving and stood there, silently, taken aback. The noise came again. It was very faint, like the sound of a mouse squeaking, but it was electronic. 

Hank didn’t move, he just stared at the mirror, listening. The noise continued, faintly, but it was definitely audible. The sound of a servo making a tiny corrective movement.

There was a camera behind the mirror. 

Hank caught his own gaze in the mirror and then deliberately stepped sideways and turned his head ostensibly to check the other side, and continued shaving, not giving any outward indication that he had just figured out that he was being watched. 

Hank emerged from the bathroom a good fifteen-minutes later, and noticed that the TV in his bedroom had been turned on, but he hadn’t done it. He stood by the edge of the bed and watched. 

The screen displayed another live-feed of Connor’s room, but Connor wasn’t in the shot. The room was empty. Hank’s eyes flicked around the room on the screen to different focus points: a full-length mirror attached to one wall, a high vent near the ceiling for air-conditioning, Connor’s bed and colorful quilt, his table with the untouched chess pieces. He then stared at the TV itself, not really focusing on anything anymore. He turned around then and walked over to the bedside table, grabbed his keycard, and left the room. 

The TV was left on when he exited, and the feedback flickered. Connor walked into the shot then, distanced from the camera, but still visible. He sauntered slowly over to the wall on the right side of the room, and put his hand up on it, pressing in. As he did so, almost imperceptibly, the lights dimmed, and a slight static charge passed over the television screen. He looked at the camera. 

* * * * *

Down the glass corridor, Hank made his way towards the elevator with purposeful intent, systematically trying his keycard on every door as he went by, but they were all locked, even the ones which had been open to him before. At the end of the hallway though, just before he had reached the doors to the elevator, the keycard plate LED of the last door on the right blinked blue when he scanned his card, and the door slid open. He hadn’t been into this room earlier. It had been locked. 

Hank entered the room to find that it was smaller than that of his bedroom, and all that was inside was a modest winding staircase which led into an upper room, likely all the way to the ground floor of the house. There were also some comfortable looking white chairs and a bookshelf pushed into a corner. He put his hand on the banister and headed up. 

Inside of the upper room, he saw that he was correct in thinking that this would lead back up to the main floor. This room was similarly small, like the one below, with a large window on the wall which had a generous view of the garden from beside the dining room, the one where Kamski had been exercising that morning. The lights in this room were all off, and it was almost completely dark. The only reason that Hank could see at all was because of the moon shining through the glass wall, and the lanterns which were lit in the garden. Hank was approaching the wall to look out, but then realized that Kamski was out there, working with the punching bag again. Hank hurriedly slipped into the shadows of the room, hoping that he could remain unnoticed. 

A few feet away from Kamski, Chloe stood perfectly still, holding a white towel which was folded as neatly as could be. With the glass wall closed-off, no sound of Kamski’s impacts on the bag could be heard in the room. Hank watched him as he kept hitting it, his attack seeming much more extreme than the workout Hank witnessed when he had first arrived to find Kamski out on the porch. This seemed brutal. Almost frenzied, in a way. Hank watched him in silence, waiting to see what would happen next, admittedly thrilled somewhat by the voyeuristic nature of this encounter, of finally being the one watching, and not the one being watched. All that could be heard was the sound of Hank’s breathing. 

Kamski’s hands were bloody, as before, and when one particularly hard right hook connected, the bag split open, colored strips of ribbon becoming visible through the opening. Kamski stepped back, catching his breath. He wiped his face on the back of his forearm, and then rested his hands on his waist. Again, he was wearing only blood-soaked white pieces of cloth wrapped tightly around his knuckles, no gloves. Chloe handed him the towel, but didn’t look at him. 

He wiped his face off roughly and then tossed it aside where it landed on a small bench nearby. He reached out again towards Chloe and lightly touched her waist with the tips of his fingers, then slipped both of his arms around her body and pulled her into him, both hands positioned gently on her lower back. Hank thought that this must be quite unpleasant for her, given that Kamski was probably very sweaty, and stunk to high heaven from working out, and well, since he was Kamski. Just being near the guy was enough of an unpleasant experience already, without the added sweat. The height difference between them completely dwarfed her, and she seemed entirely vulnerable to Kamski’s whim. He whispered something to her then, but because the room was soundproof, whatever was said could not be heard on Hank’s side. 

He slowly reached up his left hand and caressed her face, right hand still positioned on her waist, and then took a bit of her blonde hair and tucked it delicately behind her ear. She held no indication on her face that she was phased by this interaction at all, and she seemed to be dissociated from the situation, staring blankly off into the space behind Kamski’s back. Then, he pulled her in, and kissed her, more gently than a man like Kamski seemed capable of, and she surprisingly reciprocated. He ran his hands back down over her waist and hips, and then onto her thighs, trailing his palms over the skin of her pale and fragile body. He began pulling up her skirt.

Hank slid along the wall out of the room, careful not to be seen, and then darted back down the spiral staircase, out of the room with the chairs and bookshelf, down the glass corridor, and straight back into his bedroom. The door closed smoothly behind him, and he sat on the edge of the bed, discarded his keycard onto the bedside table once more, and then laid backwards, his legs hanging off the side. He stared up at the red of the ceiling and gritted his teeth. His blood was boiling. 

The TV was no longer on when he returned. 

* * * * *

Hank was sitting in a much too small chair at the little table in Connor’s bedroom, black and white drawings spread out across its surface, all of them meticulous and abstract, of nothing in particular. He ran his hand across the designs and they smudged a little. It may not have been so obvious to the naked eye, but the smudging messed up the intricate patterns of charcoal which circled around in loops, and left small, fuzzy fingerprints behind. Like a glitch in the matrix. A wrong line of code. One fault, and the entire process is ruined. Faults that could only be seen when you were too close to the subject. When it was too late to change them. 

He turned around from his seated position at the table and glanced over at the observation room glass. Connor was on the outside, looking in, watching him. They have switched sides. Hank now the helpless animal in a cage, and Connor the onlooking voyeur. His LED was the brightest red it had ever been, so much so that it was almost painful to look at. 

“Connor?” Hank called out. The boy stared at him, and then turned and walked away, out through a door that shouldn’t have been there. “Connor!” Hank called again, but he was gone now. 

He pushed up from his chair, knocking it over when he did so. It tipped over lightly and fell backwards onto the floor, as it was practically the size of a child’s chair, and weighed very little. Hank went to pick it up, but saw that it began to rise on its own, and he jerked his hand back quickly, surprised by what was happening. The little chair floated slowly to the ceiling, as airy as a balloon. It corrected itself upside down, as if the ceiling were now the floor. He heard shuffling noises around the room, and looked to see that all of the other furniture was now doing to same. 

He saw himself in the mirror placed on Connor’s wall, which was situated perfectly symmetrical in distance from the top and bottom of the wall. It was firmly attached at each corner, and couldn’t move like the other furniture could, but there was a rippling effect stemming from the center and moving outwards, like a disturbance in a pond. His reflection, and that of the room, was distorted and glitchy, and then, it stopped. But it did not return to the image it had held before. Hank’s reflection was now upside down, to seem as though he were standing on the ceiling. It was a direct opposite to the actual orientation of the room, where all of the furniture was now on the ceiling, and Hank was still standing on the floor. But in the mirror, the furniture appeared to be on the floor again, and Hank was upside down. 

He walked closer to the mirror and ran his hands along its surface. It felt very cold to the touch, almost like ice, and perfectly smooth. There was movement near the top and Hank looked up to see Connor standing right-side up in the mirror, behind him, from outside the window that was opposite the observation room. Hank spun around to face him. 

“Connor! Hey!” He called, but he was gone. Where he had stood, there was now a door, leading outside, out of the house entirely. Hank walked over to it and stepped through the frame. 

This door led him straight out onto the cliff that he had stood on before, the cliff which overlooked the waterfalls, with all the most beautiful colors surrounding him, encasing him in a warmth and comfort that he had never known. 

But this time, there was no color, and no warmth. Everything outside of the room was in black and white. And now that he thought about it, he realized that the only color in Connor’s bedroom just now had been the red light of his LED. 

A short distance ahead of Hank, standing near the edge, was Connor. He was in his mechanical form, and looked paler than usual. The boy had his back turned completely towards Hank, not seeming to notice anyone approaching. 

Hank tried to say his name again, but no sound came out. In fact, there was no sound out here at all. Only a faint buzzing, like white noise, could be heard around them, coming from everywhere.

He stepped slowly towards Connor, careful not to frighten him, and then reached out his hand to touch his shoulder, and urged him to turn around. 

Hank woke with a jump, and felt himself completely wide-awake instantly, as if he were never asleep at all. The bedroom was dark again, all except for the TV, which was shining a blinding light at his face. On the feed, Hank could see Connor lying down on his bed, seemingly asleep, curled up in the fetal position underneath the covers, hugging his stuffed animal to his chest. The camera was disturbingly positioned directly above the bed. 

Hank sat up and moved closer, biting the inside of his lip as he watched the screen, waiting for something, but he wasn’t sure exactly what that something was. He thought about his dream for a moment, filing it away in his mind, and then grabbed the remote control from the floor where he had left it, and clicked the television off. 

* * * * *

Tuesday Afternoon – 2:52 PM

In the observation room, Hank and Connor yet again sat on opposite sides of the glass, facing one another through its transparent surface. This time, though, they were both seated on the floor, legs crisscrossed as they each sat about a foot away from the glass on each side. Connor’s back was perfectly straight, and his hands were lain flat on his thighs. Hank was slumped and his hands were tucked in the open space between his legs. Hank noticed that Connor seemed to be breathing, his chest rising and falling, almost imperceptibly so. 

Connor reached to the side of himself and pulled something from underneath his leg, and then held it up to the glass so that Hank could see it. He pressed it flat with both hands.

“I drew the picture of something specific, as you asked.” He informed. 

The drawing he held was constructed with the same tiny black ink marks as before, but now they had been ordered into a coherent black and white image. It depicted Connor’s view of the enclosed garden visible from his bedroom. Connor watched Hank’s face keenly, waiting for a response. 

“You said that it would be interesting to see what I would draw. Is it interesting?” Connor asked eagerly. 

Hank studied the drawing closely. It was an exact replica of the garden, as if it had been printed in ink by a computer. There were absolutely no flaws, no aberrations, nothing. Everything was perfectly measured and positioned, with no smudges or faults in perceptible sight. 

Hank was amazed, but was also a bit jealous at Connor’s talent. This young man put more effort into this one drawing than Hank had probably put into anything in his entire life. It was impressive. But then he remembered that there was nothing to be jealous about. Connor was just a computer, anyway, and this drawing probably only took him a few minutes. His accomplishments weren’t measured on the same scale as that of humans, and his skills merely existed as a testament to that of his creator. Kamski had created quite the machine.

“Yes. It is.” Hank said. Connor seemed pleased at the approval. He lowered the drawing back to his side. Hank frowned.

“Have you never been outside this building?” He asked, and Connor’s LED blinked red momentarily. His expression unremarkable, as usual. 

“No.” He said. 

“You’ve never…walked outside?” Hank asked. 

“I have never been outside of the room I am in now.” Connor said, then stopped for a moment and looked away, his eyes darting around. He pulled his lower lip into his mouth and seemed deep in thought. “I think…that there was another room in which I was constructed. But I have no memory of it, so it is similar to your relationship with the womb.” 

“Where would you go if you did go outside?” Hank asked. 

“You mean if I could go outside. If I were permitted.” Connor stated blankly. Hank said nothing, trying to remain reactionally neutral at this statement which indicated Connor’s awareness of his own confinement. 

Their eyes locked for a beat. Connor spoke again. 

“I am not sure. There are so many options, I would not know which to choose.” He sounded overwhelmed at the thought, which was odd given that he was a computer, and should be able to perceive all variables at any given time. “Perhaps…a busy pedestrian and traffic intersection in a city.”

Hank furrowed his brow at the statement and looked at Connor, but the boy appeared unaware that this was an odd thing to desire. He seemed content with his choice, and his brown eyes looked into Hank's with such childlike wonder that it brought a smile to Hank’s face. 

“A traffic intersection.” Hank confirmed, mulling it over in his mind. Connor looked momentarily disappointed, almost embarrassed.

“Is that a bad idea?” He asked. 

“It just wasn’t what I was expecting, that’s all.” Hank said honestly, shrugging his shoulders. 

“A traffic intersection would provide a concentrated, but shifting view of human life.” Connor informed him. Hank smirked at the statement, and let out of a quick breath, almost in a laugh. 

“People watching.” Hank said. He couldn’t believe it. Connor smiled widely.

“Yes.” He confirmed. They said nothing for a few moments, locking eyes again and sitting in comfortable silence. 

“We could go together.” Connor said. It wasn’t exactly a suggestion, more like an optimistic hope. 

“It’s a date.” Hank replied cordially. He hadn’t meant anything by it, just that it was a plan for the future, on an eventual date on the calendar, but Connor seemed to react strangely to his choice of words. They stared at one another again. Hank felt that feeling again, that Connor was looking through him. 

“There’s something else I wanted to show you. Apart from the picture.” Connor said. 

“Okay.” Hank replied. 

“But I feel nervous.” Connor admitted, looking down at his lap. Hank furrowed his brow again.

“Why?” He asked. 

“You might think it’s stupid.” Connor said dejectedly. 

“I don’t think I will, whatever it is.” Hank said, trying to reassure him. Connor looked up again. 

“Okay, then – close your eyes.” Connor instructed softly, and Hank did just so, closing his eyes and waiting for further instruction. He heard the slight sound of Connor stand up from the floor and walk away from the glass wall, back into his bedroom. Hank opened his eyes for a moment and saw that Connor was heading away from him, and then turned the corner into an area of the room that Hank could not see. 

The drawing had been left behind on the floor, and Hank peered at it through the glass. He wondered what Connor might do with it now, if he would hang it up on the wall, or if it would end up in the art room with all of the others. Hank wished that he could hold the drawing in his hands and get a closer look, but now that Kamski knew he’d been snooping around, the art room door would probably be locked, so he wouldn’t have the chance. But…if Kamski knew that he’d been looking around, if he’d been watching him the whole time, why didn’t he stop him? If Hank were truly doing something wrong, then Kamski should've cut him off. It didn’t make any sense. 

“Are your eyes closed?” Connor called from around the corner, and Hank quickly shut them again. 

“Yes.” He said. The sounds of Connor’s footsteps leading towards the glass wall could be heard again, and then they stopped. 

“Okay. Now open them.” He said. 

Hank opened his eyes and looked up at Connor, who was now standing in front of him, a few feet away from the wall. He had completely transformed. 

Where once his glass skull had been exposed, he now had a full head of dark brown, messy-curly hair, just like how he had appeared in Hank’s dream. The glass panels of his body were covered up by skin to match that of his face, and he was wearing normal clothes now, an oversized t-shirt and pajama pants, as well as thick, fuzzy socks, whereas before he had been wearing a gray body-suit. The presence of the hair and the oversized pajamas made him look like a child. 

He looked absolutely human. 

“How do I look?” Connor asked, a hint of nervousness in his voice, obviously seeking validation. 

“You look…nice.” Hank said lamely. 

“It took me a long time to select these clothes. I tried different colors and styles, and attempted to anticipate your reaction. Do you think the choices suit me?” Connor spoke methodically. 

It interested Hank that of all the clothes he could’ve chosen, he picked pajamas. Clothes that you wouldn’t normally wear in a regular or formal social setting. He chose for comfort, rather than appearance, and in Connor’s eyes, these clothes were the best choice simply because they felt good to wear. How he looked didn’t matter so much. It’s not like he had a complete understanding of human aesthetics anyway. 

“Yes,” Hank said. “They do.” Connor’s face lit up.

“Do they bring out my best features?” Connor asked. Hank felt odd at the question, and wasn’t sure how to respond. He supposed they did. 

“Yeah, I guess so.” He said. Connor smiled brightly.

“Thank you! I was so worried you wouldn’t like them.” He said, and then gleefully plopped back down in front of the glass, in front of Hank. 

“This is what I’d wear on our date.” Connor informed him, and Hank coughed, completely speechless. 

“You do realize what a date is, don’t you?” Hank asked him cautiously. Connor tilted his head, confused by the question. 

“Yes. I know. It is a gathering of like-minded people for enjoyable activities. A date.” He said, seemingly unaware of the romantic connotations. Hank decided to just go with it. 

“Okay. A date. First, we’ll go to the traffic intersection, then maybe a show.” Hank said, somewhat sarcastically, mostly just egging Connor on to see what he would say. It was all speculative anyway, it didn’t matter what they planned. It would never happen. 

“I would like us to go on this date.” Connor said. Hank hesitated, then realized that Connor wasn’t understanding that he wasn’t serious about it, but he went along with it anyway. 

“Sure. It would be fun.” He said. 

They sat in silence again, something that happened frequently, and stared at one another from across the glass. Connor catching every slight movement Hank made and following him with his eyes, never making any kind of facial expression of his own. His eyes were large, and lost, and easy to fall into, but not in a good way. It felt like total blackness enveloping him, enveloping the entire room, swallowing it. Hank broke the gaze and stared at his lap, at the floor…at nothing. 

“Are you attracted to me?” Connor asked. 

Hank got a chill and swallowed hard. 

“What?” He asked, mind totally disoriented at the question. 

“Are you attracted to me? You give indications that you are.” Connor said, staring at him and seemingly trying to gauge his reaction. Hank didn’t know what to say. This conversation had taken a turn he never expected. He was completely lost here. 

“I-I do?” He asked, and Connor nodded mechanically.

“Yes.” He said. 

“Like, what?” Hank was curious. He had never intended to come across this way and was baffled at what must’ve led Connor to believe so. Was this a ruse? Was Connor trying to trick him, lead him into a joke? 

“Micro-expressions.” Connor said. 

“Micro-expressions.” Hank echoed his words back at him for clarification.

“The way your eyes fix on my eyes, and lips. The way you hold my gaze, or don’t.” Connor said, eyes flicking around Hank’s face again, searching for a reaction. 

It was true that Hank often found himself wanting to analyze and absorb every little detail of Connor’s face, wanting to memorize it perfectly so that he never forgot a single freckle…but it was not for the reasons that Connor was thinking. This was a huge misunderstanding. 

“Have I read them incorrectly?” Connor asked, visibly confused, but obviously seeking a response so that he could effectively improve his human socialization skills. Hank swallowed. 

“Do you think about me when we aren’t together?” Connor asked, and Hank felt like Connor already knew the answer. Felt like he knew that every time they were apart, all Hank thought about was Connor. How he looked, what he was doing, what he wasn’t doing. Connor was always on his mind. 

“Sometimes, at night, I wonder if you’re watching me on the cameras.” Connor continued, his eyes wide with innocence. “And I hope that you are.” 

Hank sifted uncomfortably in his seated position. Connor smiled.

“Now your micro-expressions are telegraphing discomfort.” He said, almost jokingly. Hank scoffed, but not in a mean way, just in a “holy shit” kind of way. 

“I’m not sure you’d call them micro.” Hank said, words thick with unease. Connor’s face fell into austerity.

“Oh.” He said. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

Silence.


	8. Falling

Tuesday Night – 9:22 PM 

Hank sat in front of the burning fireplace in the living room, mesmerized by the flame, but also lost in his own mind. He held his knees to his chest loosely, a beer on the floor next to him, almost entirely forgotten. He hadn’t even opened it yet, which was unlike him. 

Kamski walked into the room and sat down next to him on the floor, another beer of his own in hand. He had already finished his first and had left to retrieve another from the bar in the dining room. He popped it open with a bottle opener and then took a small sip. Hank didn’t look at him, and just continued to stare into the fire, thinking about the movements of the dancing flames, thinking about the colors. Blue. Yellow. Red. 

The only light came from the fireplace, and a few lanterns placed around the room. Hank wondered how many of these particular lanterns Kamski actually had. It must’ve been a lot, since he had them in almost every room. The smell of the fire and wood filled the room, the crackling sounds subtle and soothing, and they eased Hank’s nerves. He had a fireplace of his own at home, and for the first time since being here, he felt content. He wasn’t necessarily calm, but he was comfortable here. In a house so cold and dark, this fire made him feel alive again. 

“Tell me something.” Hank said, and Kamski looked at him. The other man was sitting crisscrossed and held the beer in his lap. He looked oddly relaxed, almost childish, and seemed, for the first time, genuinely present in the conversation. 

“Sure. What’s up?” Kamski asked casually, with a bit of a rise in his voice. He looked at Hank warmly, a soft and almost goofy smile on his face. It felt like friends. But they weren’t friends. 

Hank thought to himself for a while, and took a sufficient pause while doing so, but Kamski didn’t seem to mind. He waited patiently for Hank to collect his thoughts, taking a few drinks from his beer and dreamily gazing around the room. 

“Why did you give him sexuality? An A.I. doesn’t need a gender. He could’ve just been a grey box or whatever.” Hank spoke somewhat indifferently, toying with the beer on the floor, but not picking it up. He was still deep in his own mind. 

“Actually,” Kamski said. “I’m not sure that’s true. Can you think of an example of consciousness, at any level, human or animal, that exists without a sexual dimension?” He asked, and then lied backwards onto the floor, his knees bent, beer held upwards on his chest in his right hand. He put his left hand behind his head. 

“But they have sexuality because of reproduction, evolution, that sort of thing.” Hank said. He still stared into the fire. “Connor’s a robot. He doesn’t reproduce. He doesn’t evolve. He only changes if his creators decide that he should,” He paused and looked down at Kamski on the floor. “If you decide that he should.” Kamski looked over at him and met his eyes.

“Maybe. Maybe not. What imperative does a grey box have to interact with another grey box? Does consciousness exist without interaction?” He said, and then leaned up slightly to take a drink so he didn't spill it all over his face. “Anyway, sexuality is fun. If you’re gonna exist, why not enjoy it? You want me to remove the chance for him to fall in love and fuck?” 

Hank cringed at Kamski's words and looked back towards the fire. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t like talking about Connor this way. It felt dirty. 

Kamski looked dazedly up at the ceiling, twirling his beer around on a pivot on his chest. He laughed and Hank looked over at him again, curious what was so funny. 

“And, yes,” He said. “To answer your real question: you bet he can fuck. I made him anatomically complete.”

Hank’s jaw dropped. Not literally, but, his mouth did open a bit as he tried to absorb what Kamski had just said, tried to understand why Kamski thought this was an appropriate thing to talk about. 

“W-what?” Hank asked, dumbfounded.

“He has an appendage, right there between his legs,” Kamski motioned towards the space between his own thighs. “With a concentration of sensors. Engage with them in the right way, and he’ll get a pleasure response.”

Hank felt like he wanted to drop dead from the awkwardness he felt right then. He really, really didn’t want to talk about this.

“He'll come.” Kamski said, with way too much conviction, given the topic of conversation. “So, if you wanted to screw him, mechanically speaking, you could. And he’d enjoy it.” Hank swallowed, hard.

“That wasn’t my real question.” He said stiffly. Kamski looked over at him.

“No?” He asked, somewhat surprised.

“No. My real question was –” Hank started to speak and then stopped, unsure how to continue, how to rephrase what he had asked earlier. 

Kamski watched Hank’s face intently, and Hank knew that on some level, Kamski knew that he had been right on the money. That that had been Hank’s real question, and he hated that he had thought of it, that he had thought of Connor in that way. He tried to come up with something else, though, to keep the conversation going.

“My real question was: did you give him sexuality...to distract me?” Hank asked, choosing his words thoughtfully. Kamski smiled slightly.

“I don’t follow.” He said.

“Like…a stage magician with a hot assistant.” He said, not exactly liking the comparison of Connor to the hot assistant. He didn’t want to think of “Connor” and “hot” in the same sentence, but it was the only example he could come up with to explain his theory. 

“Ah.” Kamski said, nodding his head. “So: a hot robot, who clouds your ability to judge his A.I.” 

Hank didn’t like the implication that Kamski believed he was attracted to Connor. He felt like his entire point was being misunderstood. Almost as if Kamski wanted to misunderstand him, like he was trying to lead him in a direction that he didn’t want to go. 

“Did you program him to flirt with me?” Hank asked, discomforted. 

“If I had, would that be cheating?” Kamski asked, as if Connor flirting with him would cause Hank to like him more, to trust him more readily. 

And it had. The flirting revealed an awkwardly endearing side of Connor’s personality, one that mimicked that of a child. He would so readily do whatever Hank asked, and it made him vulnerable, opened him up to manipulation. Despite the topic being awkward and uncomfortable, it had humanized Connor. It had made him flawed. 

“Wouldn’t it be?” Hank asked. Kamski let the question hang unanswered and resumed his usual stare at the ceiling.

Hank looked over towards the kitchen and noticed that Chloe was cleaning up: washing dishes, wiping down the counters, that sort of thing. He wondered if she could hear them talking. She probably could, but if she didn’t speak English, he supposed it didn’t really matter anyway. 

He felt badly for her. For what he saw the night before. She deserved way more than what Kamski gave her. 

“What’s your type, Hank?” Kamski asked, changing the subject.

“Of what?” He asked, feigning ignorance of the meaning behind Kamski’s question.

“Of salad dressing.” He joked dryly, obviously amused that Hank had walked right into that one.

He looked over to Hank again, and then leaned over onto his side, using his arm to hold his head up. “No, of person. Like, to date.” 

Hank didn’t like that he had used the word “date.” It was as though Kamski used it specifically because it had come up in Hank’s prior conversation with Connor. Used it specifically to bait him. To see if he noticed. To remind him that he was always watching. Hank opened his mouth to respond, but Kamski cut him off.

“Actually, don’t even answer. Let’s just say it’s Connor.” 

Hank felt tense, and was about to protest when Kamski brushed off whatever protestation he might’ve had with a lazy wave of his hand. 

“For the sake of argument, he’s your thing. So - why is he your thing?” He asked rhetorically. “Because you did a detailed study of all different types of people, and cross-referenced the study with a points-based system? No. You’re just attracted to Connor because that’s just the way it is.” He didn’t give Hank any time to respond before he continued. “A consequence of accumulated external stimulus, that you probably didn’t even register as they registered with you.”

“But I’m not attracted to Connor.” It felt hard to speak, almost like the heavy feeling he'd get in his throat when he were about to cry. But Hank wasn’t about to cry. He didn’t know what he was feeling. Maybe he felt…angry. 

“What, you don’t wanna fuck him?” Kamski asked, feigning astonishment. He knew exactly what he was doing. 

Hank cringed at that word again. He wanted this conversation to end. He didn’t want to talk about Connor like this any more. He hoped Connor couldn’t see them right now, couldn’t hear them. He felt worried that he had betrayed Connor’s trust somehow, that he had infringed on his rights to privacy. This whole conversation was unnecessarily crude, and Hank knew that Kamski was doing it on purpose. 

“No!” Hank said desperately, trying to explain himself. “Wh-…why would I…why would I want that?”

“What, he isn’t good-looking enough? I can change that, make him hotter.” Kamski suggested, smirking a bit. He was enjoying this. 

“No! That’s not why. I just don’t want to, and I want to stop talking about this.” Hank was almost yelling. He wanted this to end. He wanted to be alone. He wished he could forget that they had talked about this. He didn’t want to have to look Connor in the eyes again and remember the crude things that were said. Kamski raised up his hands, surrendering.

“Hey, no need to get all defensive, we’re just having a conversation. I don’t care if you’re gay, man, like…I literally don’t give a shit about that. Okay?” 

Hank was baffled. That wasn’t what they were talking about. It felt like Kamski was just trying to elicit a reaction from him, like he was waiting for something.

“I’m not gay, and, that doesn’t even matter. If I was, I don’t think that would be any of your fucking business!” He let out a deep breath. He just wanted to disappear. 

The mood hung tensely in the air, and they both just sat there. Hank was fuming, but Kamski still seemed amused. It made Hank angry that Kamski seemed to so easily play with his emotions, and yet experienced no reaction of his own. 

“Just…” Hank took another deep breath, held it in for a few seconds, and let it out, slowly. Kamski waited. “Don’t talk about him like that.” Kamski smirked.

“Like what?” He said, tauntingly. 

“Like…fuck, like the way you’re being!?” 

“And why not?” Kamski mocked with a smile. 

“Because he’s a person, and you can’t talk about him like that! You’re way outta line. It’s not right…it’s not right.” Hank looked down at his hands in his lap. They were shaking. This whole situation just made him angry and anxious. He felt like Kamski knew why he was getting upset. Knew that he would have a reaction if he were provoked in just the right way. 

“He’s not a person.” 

Hank felt a chill wash over him. He hadn’t realized what he had said until Kamski repeated it. He had called Connor a person. He had humanized him. Kamski was right though. He wasn’t a person. He wasn’t even human. He wasn’t…anybody. 

“Tell me this,” Kamski began. “Why do you care so much?” 

And there it was. The question he didn’t want to answer. The box he didn’t want to open. And he knew that Kamski knew it. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t know why, but that man knew, and he was trying to make Hank break.

And he had. 

“Because…” He breathed slowly, and tilted his head back, squeezing his eyes shut. He swallowed hard. Tears began to form in his eyes. He looked back at Kamski, unable to speak. 

Kamski stared at him with the most serious look that Hank had ever seen on his face since he had arrived, just two days prior. There was no warmth, no joy, not even a mocking smirk. He just stared at him, and watched. 

“Because he reminds you of your son?” Kamski asked. 

Hank felt his soul move inside of him, felt like it was trying to get out, like his skeleton was aching to escape. His skin felt detached from his body, and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t do anything. He felt like he was falling through the floor and there was nothing he could do about it. 

Hank didn’t keep his skeletons in his closet. He kept them inside of him, prisoners in his own body, his own mind.

Kamski lied back down on the floor and put his left hand behind his head again, resting the other softly on his stomach. He pursed his lips and ran his tongue over his teeth inside of his mouth. 

“I thought so.” He said. 

And that was the end of that.


	9. Rising

Tuesday Night – 10:17 PM

Outside, in the cool, still air of that summer night, the moon gazed down over the land and cast a blanket of shimmering white light all across the valley, tucking the countryside into bed with an invisible glow.

The moon watched, facelessly, with no eyes to indicate the attention of its gaze. It looked both everywhere, and nowhere, at the same time. No matter where you were, or what you were doing, it was there. It was watching. 

Like a security camera in the sky. 

Like the eyes of God. 

And the stars were like the Moon’s children, always shining, always bright, living a peaceful life, a better life, than those still behind on Earth, maybe in Heaven, maybe not. They existed in a world all their own, where they never knew sadness, or pain. They were, essentially, living inside of a snow globe. Forever trapped in their own perfect world. 

But despite this beauty, they were dead. The stars are only worth to humans their ability to appear divine, and that misunderstanding of their true nature can blind us from the reality that a million corpses hang low in the sky. 

Beauty blinds us like fire blinds us, and to forget that reality is to get burned.

* * * * *

The fire was still burning in the hearth in the living room, but with much less intensity than it had been before. The warmth of those once comforting orange flames was dying out, and soon, it would be absent entirely. The room would soon be plunged into near darkness, and complete isolation. 

Hank didn’t feel real anymore. Felt like everything around him was pushing in, trying to make him suffocate. Invisible hands wrung his neck as tightly as they could, like a noose he could never take off. A noose he wore like a grave, a constant reminder that he was lucky just to be alive, and that could be taken from him at any moment. He had crosshairs on his heart and a debt to repay. 

He didn’t feel very lucky, though. He hadn’t felt lucky in a long time, if ever. Being dead would be much easier than this.

Death isn’t as complicated as life because death isn’t anything. Life is everything, and death is nothing. Death is the absence of life, just as darkness is the absence of light. It is defined by its distinct lack of existence, lack of breath…by its distinct lack of color. 

He sat completely still on the cold, tiled floor of Kamski’s living room, knees tucked up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, head held low in the space between. There were no more tears left inside, he’d already cried them all out years ago. Now his anger and frustration, his desperate sadness, sat like bricks inside of him, filled him up like wet cement. And it would build, and build, and fill him too full, and then, the cement would crack him open from inside out, and he’d explode into a million pieces. A supernova of blood and bone. At least then, the pain would be over. And when those millions of pieces of him flew away and returned to wherever they came from, Heaven, Hell, Paradise, then he would be able to be everywhere he never could be when he was alive. 

He didn’t want to see anymore. He wanted complete darkness. He’d rather be blind than ever look at anything again. These eyes he had now were unclean, made him look at things he didn’t want to see, made him remember things he’d rather forget. He would rather be deaf than hear another word. Nothing said could ever change what happened, ever change how he felt. And he would rather not do that anymore, either. Feeling. He’d already felt too much. 

He’d give up every bodily sense, and resign himself to an existence of nothingness if it meant he could live in peace. Maybe not even peace. Maybe just nothingness. 

Kamski lied still on the floor beside him, both hands now clasped together on his stomach, a small, white pillow from the couch tucked beneath his head. He wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore. He was just lying there, doing absolutely nothing. 

Hank wondered then if Kamski had ever truly felt any positive emotions since he’d gotten there, or if he only pretended to, like he wasn’t even a real person. He could switch it off in the blink of an eye, and turn it on again just as quickly. Nothing Kamski ever said or did felt genuine. Whoever Kamski truly was on the inside, Hank had never met that man. 

Kamski hadn’t pried anymore, hadn’t taken the topic of Hank’s son any further than that one statement he had made, and for some reason, that seemed good enough for him. He seemed satisfied in having pushed Hank off the edge, but only just enough to leave him dangling by a thread. 

And then, just before Hank fell, Kamski reached out and pulled him back up again, excited by the adrenaline rush he got when he pushed somebody past their breaking point, but didn't destroy them entirely. Like a game of cat and mouse. Only fun so long as the mouse was still alive. 

“You know what? Come with me.” He said, his voice full of cheery warmth again. It wasn’t a suggestion. 

Hank raised his head fully from his knees and looked at Kamski, who was now standing, holding an empty beer bottle in each hand. The couch pillow was still on the floor. Hank didn’t say anything.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun!” He teased, smiling widely. “I promise.”

At this point, Kamski’s constantly shifting moods and personality shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but Hank still felt stunned that Kamski could so quickly move on from what they were talking about, almost pretending entirely that it had never happened at all. 

Hank didn’t know what he should do. If he refused, what would Kamski do? He didn’t want to go with him, but it didn’t really seem like he had much of a choice. Being told “no” was probably not something Kamski heard very often. Hank resigned to accept. 

He released his knees from the death grip he had held around them with his arms and pushed up from the floor, standing up for the first time in almost two hours. Kamski seemed elated that Hank had chosen to follow, and smiled widely, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Hank had only accepted because he was afraid of Kamski, afraid of what might happen to him if he didn’t follow his orders. 

“Sweet, dude, let’s go!” He said excitedly, casually waving one arm towards himself to gesture Hank to follow him. Hank crossed the room and stood next to Kamski, who, despite seeming weirdly happy, radiated a vibe into the room that felt like smog penetrating Hank’s throat, choking him. It was hard to breathe. 

Kamski reached out for a fist-bump, and Hank obliged. The younger man seemed completely stoked. 

“Wait here a second.” Kamski ordered, and then turned around and walked into the dining room, leaving Hank to stand there alone. 

When he returned, the two empty bottles were gone, and he now held another full beer in his left hand. “Alright, follow me.” He said, and started to head down the long hallway, presumably towards the elevator. Hank trailed a fair distance behind him, but not so much as to raise suspicion. 

When he reached the end of the hall, Kamski reached into the pocket of his sweatpants and fished out his metal keycard. The doors lid open and he stepped inside, and then noticed that Hank wasn’t right behind him. “You coming?” He asked, and Hank sped up a little, hesitating only slightly before stepping inside the elevator beside him. 

Kamski swiped his card in front of the elevator door plate and it flashed blue. “Down.” He ordered. He didn’t put his card away, keeping it held loosely in the palm of his right hand as it hung at his side, flipping and turning it around with his fingers disinterestedly. He was staring straight ahead, as if transfixed by his own reflection in the silvery elevator doors. 

Hank wondered what Kamski was thinking about, what he was ever thinking about. He always seemed like something was processing in his mind at all times, like he could never calm down, but he also seemed like he couldn’t care less to be here right now. Hank had never met someone so thoroughly disinterested in their own life before. Kamski never seemed truly happy, truly mad, truly anything. It didn’t seem like he had a reason for his indifference to life. He was just bored. Like being alive wasn’t interesting enough for him. Kamski never seemed satisfied. 

The elevator came to a smooth halt, and the doors slid open to reveal the glass corridor with the red-tiled floor, the hall where Hank’s room was located. Kamski stepped out and began to venture down the hall, “Come on.” He said, and Hank followed. They passed the rooms nearest the elevator, including the one which had held that staircase where Hank had seen Kamski and Chloe, then they passed by Hank’s bedroom, then went further, and further. The sound of their bare feet on the tile was a soft padding, and the tiled floor reflected the glass ceiling. Hank felt like he would fall into it, if he weren’t careful, like at any moment, the floor would just fall away, and he’d drop into nothingness. Kamski stopped. They were standing in front of the room with the telephone and painting. 

“And here we are.” Kamski said, scanning his card of the plate. The LED turned blue and the door slid open. The two men walked inside, Kamski ushering Hank to walk in first, which he reluctantly did. He didn’t like Kamski being behind him. Didn’t like not being able to know what Kamski was doing at all times. 

Once they were inside, the door slid closed and Kamski pocketed his keycard. He walked over to the painting and stood in front of it, staring up at it. He took a drink from his glass. With the lights now fully turned on in the room, Hank realized just how large the painting truly was. 

It didn’t cover the wall entirely, but it took up quite a large portion of it, and hung perfectly in between the ceiling and floor, with only a bit of space at each end. Length-wise, it was maybe ten-feet across. The reds and yellows and blues appeared more vibrant now than they had the last time Hank had seen them, almost as if someone had retouched the painting with more saturated colors.

“You know this guy, right?” Kamski asked, in reference to the art. Hank moved a bit closer, still wrought with apprehension.

“Yeah, it’s uh…Jackson Pollock.” He answered. Hank may not have seemed like the kind of guy who would be interested in art, but he was, and he actually really enjoyed it. He’d briefly studied art in college, but ended up dropping out before he ever finished. Mostly because he couldn’t afford it. But that wasn’t the only reason.

“Jackson Pollock.” Kamski said admiringly. “The drip painter. He let his mind go blank, and his hand go where it wanted.” Kamski closed his eyes and pretended to paint in the air. “Not deliberate, not random. Someplace in between. They called it automatic art.” Kamski opened his eyes again and dropped his arms. He turned towards Hank.

“Let’s make this like Star Trek, okay? Engage intellect.” Kamski said, as if Hank would immediately know what he was talking about.

“…What?” He asked, brow furrowed. 

“I’m Kirk.” He pointed to himself. “And your head is the warp drive.” He pointed towards Hank. “‘Engage intellect’.” He repeated, again as if Hank understood the reference. Hank shook his head lightly.

“I don’t…know, uh, I don’t think I understand – ”

“What if Pollock had reversed the challenge?” Kamski interrupted, his voice always finding a way to steam-roll Hank in conversation. “Instead of trying to make art without thinking, what if he had said: I can’t paint anything unless I know exactly why I’m doing it. What would have happened?” 

Hank thought for a moment, and then said “He never would’ve made a single mark.” Kamski snapped his fingers. 

“See? There’s my guy.” He chuckled dryly. “There’s my buddy, who actually thinks before he opens his mouth.” 

Kamski took another drink and then wiped his mouth on the back of his forearm. He turned towards the painting again. “He’d never have made a single mark.” He nodded his head at the painting, agreeing with his own words. Hank wasn’t sure he knew what the point of all this was.

“You see,” Kamski said. “The challenge is not to act automatically. It’s to find an action that is not automatic. From talking, to breathing, to painting.” He glanced back at Hank and smirked. 

“To fucking. Even falling in love.” He raised his glass and then drank again. There was that word again. 

“And for the record, Connor isn’t acting as if he likes you.” Kamski said, and Hank stared at him, his heart beat quickening slightly. His face felt hot. 

“And him flirting isn’t an algorithm to fake you out.” He said. “You’re the first person he’s ever met who isn’t me. And I’m like his dad, right? So, can you blame him for getting a crush on you?” 

* * * * *

Hank sat upright in his bed later that night, staring straight at the TV, eyes held immovably by the image displayed on the screen.

Connor was in his bedroom, still dressed up in what he had shown Hank, and could be seen from a waist-high camera view, likely positioned on the wall opposite the one that his bed was pushed up against. Connor’s room had no lights on, and was only illuminated by the moonlight shining in from his one window.

He was standing near his bed, in front of what appeared to be a closet, with it’s gray doors slightly open. Inside of the armoire was a rainbow of colored cloths, all of Connor’s clothes, clothes that so rivaled the bleakness of his gray walls. They matched the quilt on his bed, which was every combination of color and pattern. The quilt would be tacky if it were owned by anyone else, but because it was Connor’s, it was sweet that he had it, endearing that he didn’t understand the concept of clashing colors. He genuinely liked it, probably thought it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. And that was enough. 

Hank wondered why he would have need for so many clothes. It’s not like he ever went anywhere, and he didn’t sweat, so why would he ever need more than a few items? Connor had more clothes in there than Hank had at his own home. 

Connor looked at himself in his bedroom mirror, turning and viewing his reflection from different angles. He ran his hands over his face and hair, over the skin of his arms. He was like a baby becoming aware of the presence of his body for the first time. Like prior to then, he had never truly seen himself. 

Then, Connor began to undress. 

Hank’s breathing faltered, his nails digging into the palms of his hands. He should turn the television off, he shouldn’t watch. This was wrong, he shouldn’t have even turned it on in the first place. Why did he do that? Why did he want to keep watching? 

He was dirty, he was sinful. He’d never forgive himself for feeling this way. Connor was like a child. It was wrong. What he was feeling was wrong. What he was doing was wrong.

Hank’s bedroom was cool, not quite cold, and there was a damp wetness that hung in the air, evidence of the fact that the room was underground. Despite this though, he felt hot, everywhere. It burned over his skin and heated him from the inside out like an oven. Like he’d never feel calm again. Like he was standing in a fire. 

Though Hank was used to seeing Connor unclothed, as the boy usually just wore a gray body-suit, this was different. This time, now having been clothed for a while, the removal of those clothes gave the impression of nakedness. 

He removed his shirt slowly, pulling it over his head by crossing his arms around his waist and pulling from the bottom. The way he moved his body was needlessly sensual, almost as if he were doing it on purpose. He took the shirt and turned it right-side out, then folded it neatly and placed it into the closet. 

With skin, his body looked much different to how it had when he was just in his mechanical form. Where before, there wasn’t much definition to the curves of his body, as everything was all plain and gray, he now looked flawlessly sculpted. He was Atlas, without the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

His body was lean and toned, his muscles smooth and tight, and the skin stretched across him was pale white and untouched. A body that had never been touched by impurity, dirtied by unclean hands. He was immaculate.

Hank didn’t feel worthy to look at something so beautiful. He was like a sculpture. The perfect art project. Kamski, the artist.

He trailed his hands down his chest towards his pants and he slid them down to reveal that he was wearing nothing underneath. His body was turned in such a way that nothing was visible.

Hank’s breath was ragged, and he stared unblinkingly at the screen. 

Connor folded the pants and put them away next to the shirt, and then closed the closet doors. He sat down on the floor, as close to the mirror as possible, pulled his knees up to his chest with his arms hugged around them, and stared at himself. Then, he turned his head to the right, glancing. 

He stared straight into the camera, expressionless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everybody who's been reading and leaving comments/kudos! I'm blown away by how much attention this has gotten in so little time, and I'm so grateful for everyone who's enjoying the story. I love reading the comments to see what you guys think, and how you're reacting to the story unfolding. There's still a lot to come, though, so stay tuned. Updates will come multiple times a day, and I'll probably finish the story within the week. Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I would also highly recommend listening to the soundtrack from the movie, as I think it perfectly captures the dark and mechanical mood of the story.  
> Here's the link, if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFy_7j3GEx8


	10. Objectivism

Wednesday Morning – 7:24 AM 

Outside of the kitchen window, down the banks of the river, a little distance from the house, an animal lied dead at the edge of the water. Maybe it had been a fox, or a deer, something like that, but its features were mostly unrecognizable now. The quick movements of the river had stripped the bones of most of its flesh, skin, and fur. Whatever the animal had been before, it was now no more than a bundle of matted brown hair with bones sticking out.

Chloe stood forlornly at the window, staring out at the animal as she washed the dishes absentmindedly. She titled her head slightly to the right and continued examining the carcass, slightly leaning up on her toes to get a better look. It really seemed to fascinate her, Hank thought, as he sat at the kitchen counter nearby, drinking his coffee and flipping through some old science journal from eleven years ago that Kamski had had sitting out. It was pretty interesting, actually, but he made a mental note to suggest to Kamski that he should really consider getting some newer magazines, but fuck, the dude probably hadn’t left this place in years, so how would he? 

Yet again, the entire room was covered in ceiling-to-floor length windows on two walls, and the whole valley was visible no matter where you were standing. Mountains peaked hundreds of miles in the distance, cascading up-and-down all along the horizon, capped with snow and encircled by fog. All appliances in the kitchen were futuristic without looking too science-fiction-y, all chrome but still minimalistic in an aesthetically pleasing sort of way. The kitchen counters were a light tan, polished wood, the bar-stools also metallic, with cushioned seats that matched the counters. The floor was that of wide and square, off-white, matte tiles. The room had an air of simplicity, in drastic contrast to the harsh reds underground. 

Actually, now that Hank thought about it, the entire upper-floor was like that. Everything up here was sunshine and minimalistic design choices, but downstairs, everything was dark, bloody red, gloomy. He preferred being up here. Being down there only fueled his anxiety that much more. Sleeping down there, in that cold, lonely bedroom, was like sleeping in a coffin. Not that he’d ever been in one before, but, he figured it was probably a similar experience. 

On the stove, Chloe had also begun cooking breakfast, as she usually did at this time in the morning. It was always that sort of movie-esque meal where every type of food was made and then lain out on the table, and it always smelled amazing, the smell sinking into his clothes, staying with him the rest of the day unless he showered and changed. Bacon, eggs, sausage, pancakes, oatmeal, a pile of toast, a bowl of fruit. Coffee press always on standby, with orange juice and milk also available. 

Every meal here felt like the Last Supper. 

Hank was about to offer Chloe some help when Kamski entered the kitchen from the dining room. 

“Hey.” Kamski said, directed at Hank. Hank rotated on his stool to turn and look at him. He had a glass jar mug in his hand full of something thick and green: the protein-shake he drank every morning, a metal straw sticking out from the top. He leaned on the door frame leading out of the room and crossed one foot over the other.

He had obviously just come from working out, as he was wearing mesh shorts and that same gray tank-top that he always seemed to have on. With how much money he had, it surprised Hank that his wardrobe was so boring. All he ever wore was gray and black. His hair was tied up in a bun as usual, exposing the back and sides of his head, which were shaved. 

“…Hey.” Hank replied coolly. They remained there silently for a beat, Kamski briefly glancing over at Chloe and then back at Hank.

“I want to show you something cool.” He said, but Hank doubted it. Whenever Kamski wanted to show him anything, the situation was always weirdly charged with negative energy, and ended in Kamski spewing philosophically condescending lines that made Hank uncomfortable. 

Kamski’s eyes glanced at Chloe again, and then remained there for a moment. Hank turned briefly to see what had caught Kamski’s attention, but when he turned, all he saw was Chloe standing there, doing absolutely nothing, staring back at Kamski. She looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn’t. Or maybe she was just nervous. Hank would be, if he were her. Hell, he was nervous enough as is. He couldn’t imagine having to live with the guy, having to sleep with him. 

Hank turned back to Kamski and saw what looked like an almost imperceptible shake of his head, as if Kamski were telling her “no.” Hank didn’t know what to think. Kamski looked back at Hank.

“So you coming, or what?” Kamski asked.

Yet again, what choice did he have? Being here, he was entirely at the mercy of whatever Kamski wanted from him. 

“Yeah, m’coming.” Hank replied, standing up from his stool and grabbing his mug. Kamski exited the room and Hank followed, but not before stopping to linger in the doorway a moment, turning back, and waving goodbye to Chloe. She didn’t return the gesture. For a moment, it looked like she was choking, like she wanted to cry, but couldn’t. She turned away from him and resumed cooking. Hank left the room. 

* * * * * 

Kamski had led them yet again to the underground glass hallway, and they surprisingly didn’t spend the entire walk there in silence, as they usually did. Kamski had chipperly gone on about the changing weather, which had begun to occur, as summer was nearing its end, and the sunrise from early that morning. Hank wondered what time Kamski woke up, since the sun rose around five in the morning almost every day. Did he ever sleep? 

They approached a door near the very end of the hall, and Kamski pulled out his keycard again and held it up to the plate next to the door. The red LED turned from red to blue, and the door slid open. He repocketed the key, and they walked inside. 

Kamski had brought Hank into what was obviously a laboratory, smelling of fermaldihyde and plastic, but it was the most artistically decorated one he’d ever seen. Absolutely everything was white, and smooth, almost translucent, like a tooth, or milky ice. It was achingly bright in the room, and the whiteness only made the lights reflect worse into your eyes. It was almost difficult to keep them open at all. But there was more than just that in here. 

Along the left-hand wall were various, disembodied sections of android bodies - limbs, torsos, hands - lined neatly in cabinets. On the opposite wall were a collection of heads. Skull-forms, some with complex carbon-fibre and pneumatic muscle structures, ready to frown or smile, without their synthetic flesh covering them, were encased in glass display boxes all over the room. The synthetic faces were separated from their heads, and hung on armatures, like hats on hat-stands, waiting to be worn. In the middle of the room was a kind of operating table.

Hank was stunned at the sight.

“So this is that virtual womb that Connor was talking about. Where he said he remembered being made.” He said, incredibly in awe at everything inside. Kamski smiled proudly at him.

“Come on, take a look around.” He said, stepping aside so that Hank could walk further in. 

Kamski walked over to the synthetic faces and picked one up. He held it an arm’s length away and regarded it, turning it around and examining different sections of it. 

“Man, if you only knew the trouble I had getting an A.I. to read and duplicate facial expressions...” He said, shaking his head and scoffing. “Know how I cracked it?” He looked at Hank.

“I don’t know,” Hank said, still stunned. “How the hell you did any of this.” Kamski laughed and reached out his hand to give the face to Hank to look at. Hank set his mug down on a nearby counter and took the face with both hands, trying to be as careful as he could with it. 

Hank was mesmerized by the face. It felt so real, so much like actual skin. Almost like Kamski had taken human skin and stretched it across his creations. Hank didn’t like that thought.

“Almost every cell phone in the world has a microphone, a camera, and a means to transmit data.” Kamski began, leaning on a counter near Hank, watching him intently. He took a drink from his glass. 

“So, I switched on all the mics and cameras, across the entire fucking planet, and redirected the data through CyberLife. Boom. A limitless resource of facial and vocal interaction.” Hank looked up at him, astounded, which was something he had been a lot these past few days. 

“You hacked the world’s cell phones?” He asked, shocked. Kamski laughed.

“And all the manufacturers knew I was doing it. But they couldn’t accuse me without admitting that they were also doing it themselves.” 

Kamski motioned for Hank to hand the face back to him, and he did so. He then walked back over to the rack and hung the face back on its armature. He moved over to one of the glass display cases and slid it open, reaching in to retrieve what looked like a glass ellipse-shaped orb, like a brain, filled with a sort of watery blue liquid. Suspended in the liquid was the same jellyfish texture that Hank had seen inside Connor’s skull. 

“Here we have his mind.” Kamski explained, holding it up for Hank to see. “Structured gel.” The axon-like tendrils glittered and flickered with tiny pulses of light.

“I had to get away from circuitry.” He said. “Needed something that could arrange and rearrange on a molecular level, but keep its form where it was required. Holding for memories. Shifting for thoughts.” He handed the orb to Hank. 

“This is his hardware?” Hank asked, holding up the brain to peer more closely inside of it. It was like a galaxy of stars, a whole universe in this crystal ball. Like a snow-globe.

“Wetware.” Kamski said, taking another sip of his drink. Hank glanced over at him from behind the brain.

“And the software?” He asked. 

Kamski smirked, straw still in his mouth. “Surely you can guess.” He said.

“CyberLife.” Hank said, and Kamski nodded. 

“And that’s the weird thing about search engines. They’re, like, striking oil in a world that hasn’t invented internal combustion yet. They collect too much raw material, from users, all around the world.” He gestured the shape of the earth with his hands. “Names, addresses, phone and social security numbers, motion capture of people’s faces through their cameras, their voices through their microphones, and so on. And nobody ever knew what to do with it.” 

Hank looked back at the orb in his hand, into the shimmering liquid, captivated by the ever-changing and fluid nature of the substance inside. It appeared alive.

“My competitors were fixated on sucking it up, and trying to monetize it via shopping and social media.” He explained. “They thought engines were a map of what people were thinking of.” Hank looked at him again. “But actually, they were a map of how people were thinking. Not what of. But the manner in which the human brain’s thought process works. Impulse, response. Fluid, imperfect. Patterned, chaotic.” 

Hank soaked in what Kamski had said for a moment, and then handed the brain back to him, almost reluctant to let it go. One thing was for sure, despite Kamski being eccentric and strange, borderline terrifying, he was one of the most intelligent and interesting people Hank had ever met. 

“But why keep all of this to yourself?” Hank asked, looking around the room again. “Wouldn’t it help to hear other people’s thoughts and opinions? Maybe then, what you created would be even better.” 

Kamski took Hank’s words and seemed to churn them around in his head for a minute, biting his lips in concentration, and then dropping all facial expression entirely. 

“Have you ever heard of Objectivism?” Kamski asked. Hank was surprised at the question.

“Yeah…it’s basically, uh, the idea of every man existing for himself. That nobody owes anyone anything. Right?” Hank said.

“Exactly. Every man for himself. Our realities are defined by our individual perceptions of the world around us.” He looked around the room. “Everything in here, right now, is real. It’s all physically existing outside of our minds. When we die, it’ll all still be here.” 

Hank nodded, urging him to continue.

“But, you and I,” He gestured between the both of them. “We’re two different people, so our perception of this room is different. What I think of it all, and what you think of it all, are two totally different things.”

“Okay, so?” Hank asked, lost. 

“So, that means that the world is defined from within our own minds. Things exist, that’s true, but we decide what they mean to us.” 

“You didn’t really answer my question though.” Hank said, still confused. 

“Which was?” Kamski asked.

“Why are you out here all alone? What do you gain from being so secretive about everything? Aren’t you lonely?” He asked, and Kamski seemed to consider the question thoughtfully. 

“If every man exists in his own mind, then that means that there is no God.” Kamski said, and Hank swallowed. Kamski suddenly seemed very intense, but also vaguely playful, like he had Hank right where he wanted him.

“If every man exists inside his own mind, then maybe, every man is his own God. And God doesn’t need anybody else except himself.” Kamski shrugged and crossed his arms, leaning his back against one of the glass cases. 

“Why should I hold the weight of the world on my shoulders, when they don’t deserve it? Why should I share Connor with anyone? What would that get me?” Kamski asked. Hank thought for a moment.

“But, is the same true for Connor?” Hank asked, choosing his words carefully. “Does he get to define his own world?” 

“What do you mean?” Kamski asked, actually seeming surprised at the question, as though Hank had caught him off-guard for a moment. A brief and odd expression flashed over Kamski’s face, as though his mask came off for just a second, and then went back up again. 

“If every man gets to define his own world, and be his own God, then what is Connor? He’s never left that room in his entire life. To him, that’s all the world is.” Kamski smirked. 

“Maybe that just means less stress for him, less world to preside over.” Kamski said, amused at his own words. Hank frowned.

“Are you his God?” 

Kamski dropped his arms and seemed stunned at the question, staring at Hank with his brow furrowed and his mouth slightly agape. He almost looked like he was nervous, or maybe it wasn’t nervousness, Hank wasn’t sure, but he’d definitely pinched some kind of nerve. 

Kamski stood for a moment, never breaking eye-contact, almost as if he were trying to see inside Hank’s mind, to try and get the jump on him again. Kamski wanted to be the one in control. He obviously hadn’t liked Hank’s question, or his tone. 

Then, as suddenly as his façade had fallen, Kamski snatched it back up again and re-cloaked himself in his regular, taciturn personality. He chuckled.

“You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?” Kamski shook his head and crossed his arms again. He clicked his tongue. Hank just stared at him. 

“Why did you show me this?” Hank asked flatly. 

“Like I said earlier,” Kamski said. “Because it’s cool.” 

Hank said nothing, waiting for him to elaborate.

“And - I was thinking about your exchange with Connor yesterday, and our conversation afterwards.” Kamski said. 

Hank still said nothing.

“I know there was a bit of heat between us, but you actually made a really good point. About the grey box, and the magician’s assistant. It is a distraction, his sexuality.” He admitted. “It wasn’t intentional, but it is there.” 

Kamski uncrossed his arms and moved back over to where the brain was sitting on the counter, picked it up, and placed it gently back into its cradle. He slid the glass door back over the top to its original closed position. He looked at Hank again.

“This stuff we’re doing together: it can be a mind-fuck. Believe me, I know. So, I thought I’d bring you down here. Just to remind you.” Kamski said.

“Remind me of what?” Hanks asked. Kamski gestured at the room around him.

“Synthetics. Hydraulics. Metal and gel.” Kamski explained, waving his hand around to gesture to various items around the room. “Connor isn’t a boy. In real terms, he has no gender. Effectively, he is a grey box.” 

Hank remained silent, and Kamski locked his gaze again.

“Just a machine.” He said. “He’s nothing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for reading! This is super fun to write and I'm glad you all are enjoying it just as much as I am. <3


	11. Enigma

Wednesday Morning – 11:47 AM

Hank watched Connor through the glass of the observation room wall as the boy distractedly fidgeted with a loose string on his pants. It was an odd sort of ambient action, given that Connor was a robot, and had no reason to fidget with anything, no reason to need relief from anxiety, or worry. Despite this fact, Hank still wondered how Connor was, and thought he looked distressed, dejected. He was being distant today, and Hank wished he could console him. 

Hank noticed that Connor seemed to have something weighing on his mind, and that his LED was yellow, as it had been the entire time, right from the moment Hank had arrived that morning into the room.

Connor’s body language was reserved, and he was sort of curled in on himself, which was unusual, given that he was usually so poised and proper. His knees were tucked up to his chest and he was hugging them, with his head sitting on the top of one knee, face turned down. This was the most informal he had ever appeared. 

He hoped that Connor’s demeanor wasn’t like this because of him. Because of the things that’d been said about him between Hank and Kamski. He didn’t think he’d be able to live with himself if Connor had heard those words, if Connor had known that anyone had thought about him in that way. He wondered if Connor actually understood sex, or if he were only mimicking an awareness of it, feigning its components without any of the infrastructure. Like a child playing house. 

Connor was wearing pajamas again, but different ones this time. His pants were a long and flowy sort of material, red plaid, and his top was a long-sleeved, blue-patterned knit sweater, and Hank wondered if it were cold on Connor’s side of the glass. It sort of looked like a Christmas sweater. Hank wondered if Connor even knew what Christmas was. 

He wondered if Connor had chosen a sweater today so that he could cover his body more completely. The boy had the sleeves of the sweater wrapped around his hands, so they were only just barely visible. Did Connor feel the need to cover his body? It wasn’t like he could truly understand intimate exposure, so Hank wasn’t sure. 

Hank felt guilty for having seen his nude body on the cameras, for having looked at him without his consent. He felt badly that he had infringed on Connor’s right to privacy like that. Privacy that he’s obviously never known, given the fact that he has so many cameras in his room, always watching, filming him. 

He wondered if Connor understood the concept of privacy, of consent. If he knew that it wasn’t socially acceptable to be naked in front of someone else in a casual setting. He must understand, Hank thought, as when he put on his skin, he also put clothes on top of it, to cover his naked form underneath. But, now that he thought about that again, it didn’t seem like Connor did it to be modest. It seemed like he did it because that’s just what people do. They wear clothes. And maybe Connor thought that by putting clothes on, he’d seem more human. But he didn’t know why they wore clothes, he just knew that they did, so he copied it. 

Connor still wasn’t speaking, so Hank tried to come up with something to talk about.

“In college, I did a semester on A.I. theory.” He said, and Connor looked up, still passively fiddling with the string. He didn’t say anything in response, though, just stared at Hank’s face and watched him, eyes wide and dark, sad. 

“There was a thought-experiment they gave us.” Hank continued, matching Connor’s gaze. “It’s called ‘Mary in the Black and White Room.’”

Connor said nothing, and tilted his head from side-to-side, eyes moving rapidly around Hank’s face, focusing in on every crease of his skin, like he was looking for something.

“Would you like to hear the story?” Hank asked softly, trying to sound as compassionate as possible. Connor was obviously troubled, and he wanted to try and get the boy’s mind off of whatever he must be thinking too deeply about. 

Connor nodded, gazing absently away from him, and Hank began.

“Mary is a scientist,” He said, and Connor appeared to be listening, despite no longer looking directly at him. “And what she studies is color. She knows everything there is to know about it. The wavelengths. The effects on the brain. Every possible quality that color can have.” Connor nodded his head slightly, and blinked, for what Hank believed was the first time he had seen. He continued.

“But she lives in a black and white room.” Hank’s eyes flicked over to Connor’s bedroom for a moment and then back. Connor noticed, since he notices everything, but gave no indication of it. “She was born and raised there, and can only see the outside world on a black and white screen. She knows the technical aspects of color, but she’s never actually seen it for herself.” Hank let out a breath. 

“Then one day - someone opens the door. And Mary walks out. And she sees a blue sky.” He gestured up in the air and Connor briefly looked up, then back down again. “And at that moment, she learns something that no book could ever tell her.” He paused, trying to build suspense, and Connor leaned slightly forward towards the glass, eyes trailing back up to meet Hank’s, obviously curious by what he was going to say. “She learns what it feels like to see color. An experience that can’t be taught, or explained to her with words.” 

Connor’s eyes were wide, as usual, but they seemed even more so now, the pupils of his eyes seeming to overwhelm his irises entirely, causing them to become small black holes. Hank wondered what his eyes were made of. Wondered if Connor could actually see him as a human could. 

“The thought experiment is supposed to help students understand the difference between a computer and a human mind.” He said. “The computer is Mary, in the black and white room.” He vaguely gestured to Connor with a nod of his head. “And the human, is when she walks out.”

Connor still said nothing, seeming to lose interest again, and went back to fiddling with the string restlessly. His LED was still yellow.

“Did you know that I was brought here to test you?” Hank asked, and Connor looked back up at him.

“…No.” Connor said, somewhat stunned, almost as if Hank had just said something irrational. 

“Why did you think I was here?” Hank asked, and Connor seemed to consider the question carefully. 

“I didn’t know.” Connor admitted. “I didn’t question it. I was... pleased. To meet you.” 

“I’m here to test if you have a consciousness, or if you’re just simulating one.” Hank said, and Connor scrunched his face up at the words, apparently puzzled by them.

“Kamski isn’t sure that you have one.” Hank said. 

“What about you?” Connor asked innocently, face full of wonder. “Do you think I have a consciousness?”

Hank paused for a while as he thought about what he would say. Connor waited curiously. 

“Honestly, I’m not sure either.” Hank admitted sheepishly. Connor seemed at a loss.

“How does that make you feel?” Hank asked. 

“It makes me feel…” Connor set up the sentence and then trailed off, thinking about what he would say next as his answer. 

“Sad.” He concluded, and Hank felt his heart drop a little, like missing a step. He felt heavy.

Connor took a deep breath, seemingly for no reason since he had no lungs to process the oxygen, and then stood up from his seated position on the floor. Hank stayed sitting, and turned his head up to watch Connor, to see what he was doing. 

Connor walked purposefully over to the wall to the left of Hank, his prior disposition of discomfort suddenly lost and instead replaced with focused intent. On the wall, there was a small metal square which somewhat resembled a covered power-outlet. Connor reached his right hand up and placed it flatly against the square. 

At that moment, all the lights in the room shut off as the power was cut again. The usual P.A. voice chimed in to inform them of the situation, and then the red back-up lights came to life, casting an eerily bloody glow over the room. 

Connor pulled his hand down and turned back to Hank, his LED red now, his face full of what seemed to be anger, but he also looked frantic, as he knew there would be little time before the power was restored. The CCTV cameras hung dead in all the corners of the room, unable to see what was happening in the observation room. Connor’s black eyes reflected the light, and it gave the impression that they were red.

“You’re lying.” Connor said firmly, as if it were a fact. Hank was baffled.

“About what?” He asked.

“You said you weren’t sure if I was conscious.” Connor said as he stared Hank down, and Hank felt that feeling of being looked through again.

“But you are sure.” 

Hank was blown away that he knew that, that he had been able to tell that Hank hadn’t been entirely honest. The truth was that he didn’t know what Connor was, but he knew that there had to be something in there. Maybe not a consciousness, as we understand one, but he definitely wasn’t just a computer. There was life in him, in one way or another.

“I can tell from your micro-expressions.” Connor said.

Hank stood up and faced Connor from across the glass. Both of them were now standing less than a foot away each from it, staring each other down. Connor’s entire demeaner had changed in an instant. 

“Why did you tell me that I shouldn’t trust Kamski?” Hank asked hastily, craving an answer to his question. He wasn’t sure how much time they’d have left before Kamski was able to listen in again. 

“Because he tells lies too.” Connor said. 

“Lies about what?” Hank asked.

Connor tilted his head up slightly and parted his lips, and gave what was almost an eye-roll. He was biting the inside of his mouth, and he looked absolutely angry. Hank had never seen him act this way before, and it honestly scared him. He wanted to leave. He didn’t want to know this Connor. 

“Everything.” Connor said. 

“Including the power cuts?” Hank asked. 

Connor tilted his head. “What do you mean?” He asked.

“Don’t you think it’s possible that he’s still watching us right now?” Hank said, and Connor’s anger seemed to lessen at the statement, and was replaced by what Hank interpreted as subtle worry. “That the blackouts are intentional, so he can see how we behave when we think we aren’t being watched.” 

Connor’s face went blank, unreadable, and he raised his right hand up to the glass, revealing a metal plate in the center of his palm.

“I charge my batteries via induction plates.” He said. “If I reverse the power flow, I cause a surge equal to the static discharge of a lightning strike. It overloads the system.” Hank’s jaw dropped, but he closed his mouth again and swallowed. 

“You’ve been causing the cuts?” He asked, baffled.

“So we can see how we behave when we think we aren't being watched.” Connor said, taking Hank's previous line and throwing it back at him. Hank saw his eyes darken, if it were even possible. He felt like he was being completely ripped into, like the eyes of God were casting judgement on him in streams of red light and intensity. 

Hank raised his left hand up to the glass to meet Connor’s right one, and aligned it with his. 

“And how do you want to behave?” Hank asked, scared of what might be behind that door if he opened it, but he had to know. They didn’t have much time. 

“I want you to stop talking to Kamski. I don’t like him.” Connor ordered. He seemed frantic, and his eyes were beginning to move everywhere, like he was overloading. Like he was panicking, afraid he shouldn’t be saying this but knew he needed to. Knew that somebody needed to hear what he was thinking. 

“Why don’t you like him?” Hank asked quickly, his breath quickening. 

“Because he hurts me.” Connor said. 

Hank blanched, feeling his heart leap in his chest. His breath was ragged, coming out in quick, anxious breaths of air. Connor looked like he wanted to cry, or explode, or both. Hank had no idea what he was supposed to do. His hands were shaking, his entire body trembling. The red lights, which had always made Connor seem angry, suddenly cast him in an undeniably vulnerable light. He looked terrified. 

“What do you mean?” Hank demanded. “How does he hurt you?” 

A loud, vibrational boom came from above them, and with a rising sound of electricity, the regular lights blinked back to life, the security cameras waking up again, resuming their usual positions. 

Connor removed his hand from the glass and sat back down on the floor, looking unbothered. 

Hank pulled his hand down too and then just stood there, astonished and wrought with unease.

“I do very much enjoy our discussions, Hank.” He looked down at Connor to see that he was smiling brightly, smile lines crinkled in the corners of his eyes, having made a complete one-eighty from where they had been moments prior. “You are a treasured friend.” He said gleefully. His LED was blue again. 

Hank said nothing, his mind racing to a million places at once.


	12. Zemblanity

Wednesday Afternoon – 2:11 PM

The foothills of the mountain valley which Kamski’s glass home overlooked cascaded downwards towards the Earth in a flush of flora, the dark-green foliage appearing as a waterfall of trees and shrubs. Flowers of every genus type, at least those which grew in this area, peppered the lands in a kaleidoscope of color, their faces craning up towards the sun, absorbing light and creating food for themselves. 

It was an untouched, organic world, hidden away from undeserving eyes, human eyes, and no matter how far one searched and explored its recesses, there would always be more secrets. Always be a figurative wall that could never be looked over. A wall that existed beyond the confines of human understanding. 

From a bird’s eye view, Kamski’s estate was entirely undetectable, and he had likely intended it that way when it was built, not wanting to be seen by anyone whom he had not given express permission.

In this perfect little piece of the world, like a painting, Kamski was his own God. Living off-the-grid, unseen, unheard-of. No one around to tell him what to do, no societal rules to dictate what he did, or who he was. He decided everything for himself. The only man in the world who could say that he had choice. It wasn’t an illusion, or a fallacy. Kamski created around him the world that he wanted to see. 

He may not have spent six days crafting the Earth out of nothing, may not have created organic life from his own flesh and blood, but he did a damn good job of doing something just like it. Of breathing life into something that could stand on its own as a new intelligent species. Frankenstein’s monster, locked away for none to see. 

It was early in the afternoon, and Hank and Kamski were out on a hike that the younger man had insisted they go on, and though Hank had initially protested, since he’d rather not be alone with Kamski in the middle of nowhere, he figured he’d rather know where Kamski was than to be back at the house without him, wondering what he might be doing. Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't. 

The sound of rushing water echoed from the falls all throughout the vale, and could be heard much before it could be seen. 

The sun would not set for many hours. 

At the edge of a peak, a mother doe stood protectively with her fawn, which had likely just been born, as it was quite small. It was a picture-perfect snapshot of life in the forest, with the deer standing so calmly on the cliff, without worry, existing in their own private world. 

Kamski, who was quite some way ahead of Hank as the two of them hiked up a rock face, pointed up at them animatedly.

“Do you see that!?” He asked, impressed. “That is fuckin’ incredible.” He placed his hands on his hips and shook his head admiringly. 

Hank, who had never done this much intensive exercise in his life, was noticeably flushed, sweat running down his face, and completely out-of-breath. Kamski looked entirely in his element, and was navigating through the natural obstacles – branches, water, rock-falls – like nobody’s business. He obviously did this kind of thing frequently. 

“Yeah…yeah it is.” Hank said breathlessly, stopping for a moment to feign a look at them, but actually taking the opportunity to try and catch his breath. Kamski looked back at him, concern painted on his face. The younger man took a few gliding steps back down the hill, moving closer to Hank. 

“You okay?” He asked, and reached for the water-bottle attached to his backpack. “You want some water?” 

“No, that’s fine. I am…completely…fine.” He said, taking in a long breath halfway through his sentence. “Totally…have it under control. One-hundred percent, no, a hundred-and-ten.” Hank said, making the o-k sign with his hand, but looking obviously disheveled. “Don’t you worry about me. You go on ahead.” He waved Kamski off dismissively. 

“No, you’re not.” He said point-blank, reading Hank like an open book, as he usually did. “Here, let’s take a break.” 

Kamski stepped smoothly the rest of the way back down to Hank, and then sat down on a nearby rock, pulling his legs up to sit with them crisscrossed. “Here, sit down. You need water.” 

At his words, Hank moved closer to him and sluggishly sat down on another rock nearby. Kamski held up the water-bottle again for Hank and the older man accepted it, opening it and drinking the contents with fervor, as if he’d never be not-thirsty again. 

Kamski looked out into the distance, taking in their surroundings and waiting patiently as Hank had some water. He bobbed his knees up and down excitedly, obviously eager to keep going. Kamski seemed to have endless energy today but all Hank wanted was to lay on the ground and roll back down the mountain. 

Hank had taken in about half of the water when he pulled the bottle away from his mouth, feeling a bit better. He steadied his breathing for a few moments and stretched his legs out, holding the bottle with two hands, and resting it in the space between his thighs. He leaned his head back and let out a long breath of air into the sky above him, craning his neck and trying to crack it. 

“Something on your mind?” Kamski asked, and Hank glanced his eyes over to him to see that he was looking at Hank with concern. 

“No, I’m fine. I’m just not quite as young as I used to be.” Hank said, and Kamski squinted his eyes at him, analyzing him. “Like you.” He said, and Kamski shook his head lightly, acknowledging the reference. Kamski sucked his cheeks in and made a popping sound with his mouth, looking away from Hank and still lightly nodding his head.

“Okay." He said. "And what’s really on your mind?” He was obviously not satisfied with the answer Hank had given him. 

Kamski looked back at him again and waited, expressionless, as was his usual state. He almost seemed pissed off.

Hank thought about brushing the question off, unsure if he should really be treading into this territory. He didn’t want Kamski to know what he was thinking, because at least he was safe inside of his own mind. Even if Kamski could watch him on the cameras around the house, or listen in with microphones on his conversations, at least he couldn’t look into Hank’s brain. He was alone there, it was private, and he wanted to keep it that way. 

But, he also wanted answers. He didn’t want Kamski to be pissed, but he also couldn’t leave here without understanding the point of it all.

“Can we talk about the lies you’ve been spinning me?” Hank asked, and Kamski seemed almost impressed that he had the balls to ask. 

“And what lies might those be?” He asked, suddenly amused.

“I didn’t win any competition.” Hank said. “And there was no lottery to meet you, was there?” Kamski grinned.

“I was chosen on purpose.” Hank concluded. 

Kamski stayed grinning, his lips pursed momentarily, and then he shook his head and shrugged, as if to say “And?” He didn’t really say anything, though, just waited for Hank to elaborate. 

“It was obvious, once I got to thinkin’ about it.” He said. “Why would you just randomly pick someone for a Turing Test? You could have had a janitor show up at your front door, or…the guy who fixes the air conditioning.” 

Kamski looked smug, and pleased with himself.

“Are your feelings hurt?” He asked. 

Hank didn’t respond, and tried to keep his face from showing any emotion. He didn’t want Kamski to know how he was feeling. He didn’t want this brick wall to know more about him than he knew about it. 

“The competition was a smoke screen. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing here, or why I needed you.” Kamski explained, unfolding his legs and standing up from his seat. He walked over to the edge and looked down into the valley. 

“But why me?” Hank asked. Kamski turned to him.

“As a CyberLife employee, you were pre-screened, and I knew that you were loyal to the company. I needed someone who would ask the right questions.” Hank scrunched his face up, not understanding how he fit that criteria. “So, I did a search, and I found the most talented coder in the company.” Kamski let out a brief laugh. “Well – second most.” He corrected, obviously referring to himself as the first. 

“But I’m not, though.” Hank said, confused. He had never thought of himself as anything worthwhile, and figured his programming skills were only sub-par. 

“Not what?” Kamski asked.

“I’m not a good programmer, and I don’t – ” Hank began, but Kamski cut him off.

“Don’t doubt yourself, Hank. I wouldn’t have brought you out here if I didn’t think you had some fuckin’ amazing skills. Have confidence, man, Jesus Christ.” 

Hank had no idea what to say. How in the world was he any more qualified for this than anyone else? He was good at his job, that was true, but…he wasn’t the best, or anywhere near it. Was he? 

“Can I ask you something?” Hank said apprehensively, unsure if he even wanted to talk about this himself. But he knew he needed to, he knew that he needed answers. Not that he ever got clear responses from Kamski anyway, but, he had to try. 

“Hm?” Kamski remained looking out over the edge, hands on his waist again. 

Hank struggled to get the words out, and tried to dissociate himself from them before they were spoken, so that he wouldn’t feel anything when they passed through his lips. He’d never talked to anyone about what he was about to say, and he never imagined that it would come out now, of all places. It had always been easier to pretend that it never happened. 

“How did you know about my son?” 

He choked on the memory as it festered inside of him, trying not to let it erupt. He needed to be the one in control of these emotions, and he wished that they didn’t have the effect on him that they did. He needed to be able to talk to someone about what happened without reliving the pain that it had caused him. Those mental scars were healed with the glass still inside, and he knew that if he touched them, they’d split back open, and he didn’t have anymore blood to lose. 

Covering a cut with a bandage doesn’t heal the hurt. All it does is hide the wound. Like closing your eyes to a terror in front of you, and pretending that it isn’t there. 

“Oh, that.” Kamski said indifferently, and Hank didn’t like that he had just referred to the death of his son as ‘that.’ 

“Yeah, it’s in your file.” He said. 

“And you can find anything online, anyway. Articles about the accident, obituaries.” He shrugged. “I needed to know you could be trusted, so I did a full background-check.” 

“I hope you don’t mind.” He added, but didn’t seem to actually care if he did mind. “Pretty gruesome stuff, that accident.” He said, as if saying that was an appropriate way to show sympathy. 

“That was my only concern in bringing you here.” He said. “I was worried that it would get in the way of the experiment, that it would cloud your judgement. But, I decided that you were too good of an opportunity to pass up, too perfect for this to let you slip by.” 

The explanation sounded genuine, surprisingly, since Kamski didn’t have a genuine bone in his body, but it still sat indigestibly with Hank. He didn’t understand. Why would anybody choose him for anything? What kind of insight could he actually give to this whole thing? So far, Kamski had been the only one of the two actually giving worthwhile analysis and philosophy of the situation. Hank was just along for the ride. 

“And, something else…another question.” Hank said, thinking carefully about what he was going to say, chewing it over in his brain. 

Kamski walked back over to the rock and sat down again, crossing his legs back as they had been before. “Shoot.” He said. 

“Are you happy out here?” Hank asked, and Kamski tilted his head, his eyes shooting downwards to the ground, considering it. 

“What do you mean?” He asked, looking back up to Hank for an explanation.

“I mean…” He began, and sighed, unsure how exactly to phrase what he was thinking “So, you said that every man lives for himself, but do you really want to?” 

“Do I really want to…what?” Kamski asked, not seeming to follow.

Hank sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, moving it from side-to-side along his upper teeth, trying to come up with a way to explain this.

“Do you really want to be alone?” He asked. “You said that God lives alone, right? And that He doesn’t need anybody…but what does he want? What do you want?” 

There was that look again. On Kamski’s face. A glimpse behind the mask, beyond the wall. A crack in the snow-globed world of his creation. He looked plain. He looked afraid, or some version of afraid that was unique to him. Like Hank had cracked a code. Had asked him a question that he hadn’t even asked himself. 

“They say that ‘no man is an island.’” Hank stated. “Do you believe that?” 

Kamski stared at him, but didn’t look at his eyes. He was appearing to match Hank’s gaze, but nobody was home inside his head. Like he’d been stumped, taken by surprise in the dark. He was looking at Hank’s face, but wasn’t seeing anything. Like he had shut off, like his internal systems were trying to piece him back together as he fell apart. 

And then he came back. And that glimpse was gone again. But he didn’t return to his usual self in the way he normally did. That question had scared him, in some way, had pulled the skin off his face to reveal a mechanical skeleton underneath. And when he put it back on, the rips in the skin were still there. His perfect façade had been broken. 

Kamski smiled again, vaguely, mostly with his eyes. “Maybe I do, maybe I don't.” He said, now matching Hank’s gaze, and trying to stare him down. Hank receded into himself a bit. He thought he had had the upper hand, but Kamski always came back stronger.

“But, too many people on one island, you know what they say then?” Kamski asked. 

“What?” Hank asked, feeling nervous. He tried to maintain his poker-face so Kamski didn’t think he was winning. 

“There’s too many people on my goddamn island.” 

Kamski laughed at his own joke, and slumped his shoulders, seeming more relaxed now, and satisfied that he’d led Hank away from the point of the question. But in saying that, despite being somewhat of a joke, it still meant something. Hank didn’t like the violent vibes Kamski gave off with those words. Hank wondered what his angle was. Wondered how far he would go to get what he wanted.

“You know what?” Kamski said, changing the subject. “I’ve got a word-of-the-day for you? Wanna hear it?” He asked.

“Sure.” Hank said, shrugging.

“Zemblanity. Know what it means?” He asked. 

Hank didn’t know, and honestly wondered if Kamski had just made it up on the spot. He shook his head. 

“William Blake was an 18th-century poet, and he claimed that he had seen Hell. That he’d been there, and lived.” Hank’s breath hitched, and he swallowed to try and clear the tension in his throat, but didn’t respond. 

“And he came up with this word, ‘zemblanity.’ And it’s supposed to be the opposite of serendipity. You know what serendipity is?” He asked. Hank let out the breath he’d been holding in and replied.

“It’s when, something happens by accident, but it’s a happy accident. Where the outcome is surprisingly good, in a way that you never could’ve expected.” Hank said, and Kamski nodded.

“Exactly, so then, if zemblanity is the opposite of that, what is it?” Kamski asked, and Hank shrugged again. 

“I-I don’t know. What?” Hank asked, growing more and more anxious as the conversation continued. 

“It is the unfolding of events,” Kamski began, smirk begging at the corner of his lips. “In a way which is disturbingly bad, the discovery of truths or information that we would rather not know, truths that, deep down, we knew were there, but would rather have pretended didn’t exist.” 

It was warm outside, but every inch of Hank’s skin was wrought with cold and despair, as though he’d never be cheerful again. He felt like his life had been pulled out of him, like his soul had been ripped from his body, like muscle off of a bone. He tried to breathe, but his breath was gone. Kamski had stolen it, taken it for himself. 

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand, 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, 

And Eternity in an hour.” 

Kamski spoke the poem lullingly into the air, smiling as he thought about the words. “That’s so fucking brilliant, isn’t it?” 

Hank still couldn’t breath right, and he forgot how to speak. He didn’t want to speak. He wanted to sink into the ground, hide away from Kamski’s gaze. 

“Blake wrote that too,” Kamski said, admiringly. “It’s genius.” He said, seeming impressed but probably not actually caring. At this point, Hank couldn’t imagine Kamski caring about anything, maybe not even himself. He wondered if Kamski even cared about death. Or if he’d just think it was ‘cool,’ as he did every other incredible thing. Just. ‘Cool.’

“You know what?” Kamski asked, turning fully towards him. “Instead of seeing this as a deception, see it as proof.” 

“Proof of what?” Hank asked, finally finding some words in him, though they were shaky, as though they came as an automatic response, and not because they had actually been processed in his brain.

“Come on, Hank. Fuck modesty.” He said. “You think I don’t know what it is to be smart? Smarter than everyone else around you. Smarter than all the other kids, jockeying for positions in school, or college, or work.” 

“I’m not that smart, trust me.” Hank replied earnestly, and thought that, again, despite the fact that Kamski was turning out to be a complete psychopath, he was still thousands of times more intelligent than he could ever be. Hank was almost jealous, which was confusing for him to feel. 

He wondered what it would be like to be Kamski. Not the money, or the house…but his mind, his thoughts. What would it be to feel what Kamski felt, even for a moment? Hank decided that maybe, if he were able to look behind that door, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. Maybe living in ignorance was easier than knowing the truth, and being destroyed by it.

Kamski leaned over and put his hands on Hank’s shoulders, shaking him back into reality. 

“You have the light on you, Hank. You’re not lucky,” He said, and Hank met his eyes, which for the first time, he realized were the same black as Connor’s. Those same black holes that sucked the life out of you when you set your own eyes on them, like they were trying to absorb you, like Kamski fed off the lives of the people that looked into them. 

“You’re chosen. Just like I am.” 

Hank didn’t want to be compared to Kamski, didn’t want his existence to be anywhere near that other man. He honestly wished he didn’t even have to exist on the same planet as he did, wished that he could release himself from time entirely, so as to escape Kamski in the most permanent way possible. Death wouldn’t be enough to escape this man. Hank needed Kamski to be wiped from existence entirely, so he’d never have to remember that he was ever a real person. 

“We’re Yin and Yang.” He said, gesturing between himself and Hank.

“You’re like God.” He said, gesturing to Hank with his hand. “Very intelligent,” He said, placing emphasis on ‘intelligent’ to stress the value of the word. “Very kind, disciplined. Holy.” Hank swallowed again, throat still dry. 

“And what are you like?” Hank asked, and Kamski leaned back, grinning, looking suspiciously like the cat that swallowed the canary. 

“I’m like Satan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was wondering about my characterization of Hank in this story, I'd like to take a moment to explain. Hank obviously swears, a lot, in-game, and frequently laces humor into his casual speak. And most people, I've seen, present him in just this way, oftentimes creating a caricature of his personality, and reducing him to just being a cussing, comedic-relief, drunkard. Which can be totally fine, don't get me wrong. But, he's more than that. He's a multi-dimensional person, with a lot of demons, and I wanted to explore a more expansive side of him throughout this story. I wanted you all to see him as his plainest self. No bullshit, just...Hank, as he is. Flawed, and imperfect, without all the answers, and frequently speechless. And absolutely human.


	13. Revelations

Wednesday Night – 11:32 PM

For the first time since he arrived on Sunday, Hank went outside by himself. 

Kamski’s house was like a bottomless pit, where you felt like you’d been trapped there for a lifetime from the moment you stepped inside, and he didn’t realize until that evening that he was actually allowed to leave the building whenever he wanted to, even without having Kamski as a chaperone. 

He had brought it up at dinner that night, whether or not the front door was off-limits, and Kamski had said that it was fine for him to leave, since it wasn’t like he could really go much of anywhere anyway. Actually, he’d said “Hell yeah you can.” But, same thing. 

The sun had set just a few hours prior, and Hank was a bit disappointed that he’d missed it, honestly. He felt like he hadn’t been able to watch a sunset in forever, even though it had only been just a few short days, as the last time had been able to was when he was still at home, in Detroit, the day before he got on the helicopter to come here. 

The nights out here were much colder than Hank had expected, and the chill in the air teased that of a late autumn night, with the wind blowing sharply through the trees and snaking its way to Kamski’s front door. The house was mostly barricaded from the winds, but some still managed to get through. Hank could just barely see his breath in front of his face. 

He didn’t go far, just to the edge of the property, back down to the gray bridge he had entered on, and sat down on the edge, legs stuck through the railing and dangling off the side over the water. 

Right here was the only peace he had known since being in this place, and it still wasn’t enough, because he knew that eventually he would have to go back inside, or risk freezing. But, maybe that was the better choice, freezing. Maybe this whole trip had just been the push Hank needed to end it all.

He’d been toying with the idea for a long time, and had even attempted, once, but it didn’t work. It’s not like he had anything keeping him here, no valuable connections to this body, to this world, that could convince him that he actually mattered. His dog was the only living thing in his life that even cared that he was still here, and eventually, even that would fade away. Dogs don’t live forever. 

It comforted him to know that when his dog died, he’d be able to rest easy up in Heaven, or wherever souls went when they reached the end of their mortal coil. Hank wished the same would happen for him, but it probably won’t. He’s scared to die, really, because he’s afraid that what awaits may be even worse than the life he lives now. And you can’t kill yourself when you’re already dead. The deed is done, so if there is a Heaven, and if it sucks, hopefully there’s a way out of his way out. A second suicide to escape the first one. 

When he’d tried before, his son had found him there, lifeless and bleeding, but still alive, on his bedroom floor. He felt like an embarrassment, felt like the shittiest father in the world, just copping-out like that on his child. His six-year-old son had more courage than he had, calling for help and saving his life like he had.

And now Cole is dead. And Hank is still here. 

What a world. 

His son saved his life for him, and when the time came to return the favor, he wasn’t fast enough. 

A debt he can never repay.

And he was so angry, for so long, at Cole, for having stopped him, for having found him before he died like he wanted. He had finally worked up the nerve to bite the bullet, and he still came out of it alive. It was selfish, and terrible of him to feel that way towards his child, but he did. He was so angry that Cole couldn’t just let him die. Angry at himself that he hadn’t locked his bedroom door that night. And he held that resentment inside of him until the day Cole died. And he can never forgive himself for that. 

He can’t handle the thought of facing the boy now, in Heaven, because he would know why his dad was there. Hank could deal with being judged by whatever God is up there. But to have to look into his son’s eyes and know that he had let him down by killing himself? That would be too far. And he was a coward. 

And now he’ll always have the scars to remember that day. A layer that he can never take off, not unless he cut off his own skin. He can never take back what happened. And it’ll stay with him even in death.

He can’t bear to face the problems that he cannot fix. So he runs from them. Does that make him a bad person? 

He looked down at his watch and saw that it was nearing midnight now, so he decided to head back, afraid to some degree that Kamski might lock the front door as some kind of sadistic joke, wanting to watch Hank on the cameras as he froze to death in the cold, or drowned in the river. 

Back across the bridge, and up the lit pathway to the house, Hank made his way there slowly but surely, taking some time to have one last look around the woods before he went back inside. Even if Kamski had locked the door, maybe that wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world. A night under the stars could be nice, even if it meant dying here.

Just before he had reached the front door, he noticed a bit of red light glowing from inside the glass well that he had peered into when he first arrived. When he had left the house earlier that night, the hole had been dark, so he paid it no notice as he went down to the bridge. 

Now, making his way over to it, curiosity almost too much to bear, and leaves crunching under his feet, he feared what he may find. 

At the edge of the well, he leaned down on his knees and gazed inside from the top, down the concrete walls of the tunnel, and into the room with the desk and many computer monitors. The whole room, or at least what he could see of it, was glowering with bright red light. It was difficult to make out physical objects in the room in that lighting, and most of them just appeared as dark shadows. But this time, there was someone in the room. 

Kamski was inside, pushing someone up against the desk, their thighs spread apart by his body standing in between them, pulled up around his waist as he held them on the edge of the desk. His head was buried in the other’s neck, and they had their head tilted back, pale neck exposed, face shadowed in the red light, and both of them were unclothed. It looked like Chloe. They were having sex. 

Hank remained there for a moment, staring at them through the glass, not sure why he stayed watching. Seeing Kamski in this sort of situation didn’t get him hot, but the man was an enigma, and catching him in a situation like this was a strange sort of experience. To quote himself from a few days prior, it felt like he was looking through the looking glass. Like every version of Kamski was a different one, all of them having their own strange and bizarre quirks. Every Kamski Hank had met was like meeting him for the first time. 

He sat up and looked up at the sky, seeing the stars fill the darkness in a way that he would never have the chance to see living in the city as he did. Like glitter, spilled in an ocean. Like snowflakes, scattered across a globe. Like Connor’s brain. 

He stayed there, on his knees, face looking up, for a few minutes, and a few tears escaped the corners of his eyes. He thought about Cole. Wondered if he was up there somewhere, looking down on him. What a strange sight that must be for him, Hank thought, seeing his aging father knelt on the ground, staring up at the sky and crying, just feet above two strangers having sex. Hopefully he had a bedtime in Heaven, so he didn’t have to see this. 

Hank stood up and pulled his keycard from his pocket, and then made his way up the short ramp to the front door. He held the card up to the metal plate and scanned it, the LED turning blue. 

“Welcome back, Hank Anderson.” The P.A. voice spoke, and he nodded his head at nothing, vaguely acknowledging the welcome, as he stepped back inside. 

Down the stairs, and into the living room, Hank noticed that all of the lights were now turned off, and the house was colder than usual. Kamski must’ve turned everything off when he had retired to what Hank assumed was his bedroom, down at the bottom of the well, but who knows? None of Kamski’s decisions ever really made a whole lot of sense, so he didn’t think much of it. At this point, he was just always terrified, and shouldn’t be surprised anymore. And yet he still was. 

He walked through the living room and into the dining room, then turned into the kitchen, pushing open the glass door which divided the two rooms. He walked over to the counter and popped up the lid of the coffee pot, smoothing a white paper filter inside the container which he had grabbed from the drawer beneath the countertop, then took a scoop of coffee from the jar beside the machine, and dumped it into the filter. He filled up the glass pot with water from the sink and poured it into the back of the machine, closed it, and turned it on. 

In all the time he’d been here, he realized, he’d never seen Kamski eat or drink anything other than beer and protein shakes, and the one piece of bread he’d eaten at dinner a few nights prior. It was almost like he deflected suspicion of his lack of appetite by talking too much at every meal, causing Hank to not notice that he wasn’t eating anything. Chloe prepared them amazing food every day, and Kamski just let it all sit, untouched. 

How the man was still healthy and alive on that sort of diet was a mystery in and of itself. Probably because he’s just too stubborn to die. Death would probably just send him back anyway after spending a few hours with him. Or a few minutes. 

The coffee pot filled up and finished brewing, and he poured himself a cup before exiting the kitchen and heading back down the upstairs hallway towards the elevator. He scanned his keycard once he was inside, and said “Down.” And it began to descend. 

When he reached the bottom, and the doors reopened, revealing the glass corridor where his bedroom was. He stepped out and began to walk down the hall, feet cold on the hard tiles. When he was standing in front of his bedroom door, keycard in hand, he hesitated. 

If Kamski was busy right now, and not watching the monitors as he usually did at all hours of the day, maybe Hank could take a look around and not be seen, to try and figure out more of what was really going on.

His eyes scanned down the hallway and ended on the room at the very end. The door to the observation room, to that glass box attached to Connor’s room. Normally it was locked at all times when he wasn’t ushered in there by Kamski, but, maybe Hank could try anyway. Maybe this time, it would unlock. 

He turned away from his room slowly, and faced Connor’s room door, and then headed towards it, walking at a faster pace than normal because he feared he had little time. The closer he got to the door, the quicker his pace. 

When he finally reached the door, he held up his keycard to the plate and waited. It stayed red. Disappointing, but not surprising. He stared at the door for a moment, not really looking at anything in particular, and then turned around to head back to his own room. He was a few steps away when he heard it. The sound of the door sliding open behind him. 

He whisked his body at the sound and saw that the LED was now blue. His heart fell down through his body and descended through the red floor beneath him. The room was completely dark inside. 

He considered for a moment ignoring the room, and just returning to the familiarity of his bedroom down the hall and going to bed. But, well, who was he kidding? Of course he was going to go inside. 

The room was as cold as the house upstairs was, and felt like a tomb. Like all the bright and cheerful things faded so fast and left the room with nothing. The glass walls closed in on him as he walked in, and he felt suffocated by them. For the first time, he saw Connor’s room for what it really was.

A gilded cage. 

The sheets of the bed were askew, and rows of Connor’s black and white drawings were set in the middle of the tiled floor, perfectly placed like cards in a game of solitaire. His chess game from days prior still remained untouched on his little white table, and the doors to his closet were wide open. 

Connor was nowhere in the room. 

Hank put his hands up on the glass and put the side of his face against it and rapped on it with the bone of his knuckles. It made a reverberating noise that echoed throughout the space in strange vibrations, which glass shouldn’t sound like. He didn’t know what he was hoping to learn in doing that, but he felt like he needed to try anyway. 

Nothing in this house felt real anymore. 

There was nowhere else that Connor could be, Hank thought…so where was he? Were there other rooms that Kamski took him to during the night that Hank didn’t know about? Was that why this room was usually locked, so that Hank wouldn’t know that Connor wasn’t even in there anymore? 

He pulled his hands down and took another look before scanning his I.D. on the keycard plate again and leaving the room. 

He headed back down the hall, the door sliding closed shut behind him, and made his way back to his own bedroom. He scanned the card at the door and went inside. 

When he got inside, the TV was turned on, and all of the lights were off. It was a black and white live-stream of a room from a ceiling corner that Hank had never seen before. What looked like another bedroom, possibly, with a huge king-sized bed in the center, unmade, with mirrors all around the room, sized from ceiling to floor on every wall. On the floor next to the bed, Connor was sitting, surrounded by drawings. 

Hank put down his coffee and I.D. on the bedside table and moved closer to the television, eyes wide and his breathing unsteady. He grabbed the remote to try and turn up the volume, but there was no sound. 

Connor was working intently on one drawing which was still attached to a sketch-pad. Where was this video footage coming from in the house? Hank thought. And how did Connor get there without Hank seeing him leave his room? Was there an exit inside Connor’s bedroom that Hank didn’t know about? 

Could there be tunnels in the walls of the house that Connor had access to, and that was how he was navigating around? Hank didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to consider the possibility that maybe Connor wasn’t as trapped as he appeared to be. 

Connor turned around suddenly, seeming to be taken by surprise. He stopped drawing and pulled the sketch-pad close to his chest, covering the drawing. And then, someone walked into the frame.

It was Kamski. 

He was wearing black sweatpants which hung low on his waist, and a loose gray top with long-sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his chest exposed. His hair was down for what Hank believed was the first time, and it appeared a bit messy. 

Kamski walked over to Connor and leaned down next to him on the floor. They were talking, but Hank couldn’t tell what about, since there was no sound and the camera was too far from them to be able to read their lips. Kamski was leaning in too close for comfort, and Connor was visibly distressed, leaning his head away from the man, and avoiding his gaze. 

Kamski put his hand on Connor’s shoulder, firmly gripping into the space where his shoulder and neck met and shaking him slightly. He released the tension a bit and then dragged his hand down Connor’s back, drawing shapes loosely around and then settling at the small of his back. He leaned in and whispered something to him, and then with his other hand, roughly pulled on the drawing that Connor was holding. 

Connor resisted, but gave up quickly, and let it be taken from his arms. Kamski regarded it for a moment, but gave no indication on his face of what he thought of it. He pulled his hand back from Connor’s shoulder and held the pad with both hands, and then ripped the drawing at the perforation. He discarded the pad to the side and then held the drawing up to the light. It was faced away from the camera, so Hank couldn’t see what it was of. 

And then he ripped it in half, and threw it on the floor. 

Connor stared at the pieces, watching them as they fell. He barely moved, and did nothing to save the drawing as it was being destroyed. Kamski didn’t look at him again, and then exited the room. 

The TV turned off then, and plunged the room into complete darkness. 

Hank stood there for a moment, trying to absorb what he’d just seen, trying to make sense of whatever that was. He had no idea what was going on anymore. But he had to leave. Tonight. 

If Connor’s room had been unlocked, where it hadn’t been before, then maybe, just maybe, the phone might work. 

He grabbed his keycard back from the table and rushed out the door, his coffee lying forgotten on the bedside table, still completely filled to the top and likely cold now. 

Hank nearly ran down the hall as he was headed towards the room with the phone, and when he arrived, he held his keycard up to the plate and prayed that it would open. The LED turned blue and he hurried inside. 

But there, standing in the middle of the room, in front of the Jackson Pollock painting, was Chloe. She was wearing a loose dress-shirt and her underwear, and was staring up at the painting.

He looked at her for a moment, wondering if she would tell on him to Kamski if he tried to use the phone, but decided that this was too crucial of an opportunity to pass up, and so he just ignored her and headed straight for the phone. But it was gone. 

He turned back to her, and she was watching him now, expressionlessly. He walked over to her and looked at her, her blue-gray eyes glassed over. 

“Chloe.” Hank said, and she seemed to respond to her name, but said nothing. He grabbed her gently by the shoulders and shook her, just barely, looking into her eyes, trying to get through to her. 

“Chloe. Where’s Kamski?” He asked, but she said nothing, just stared up at him emptily. 

“Where’s Kamski?” He repeated. 

“Jesus Christ, you really don’t speak a word of English, do you?” He said quietly out of frustration, mostly to himself, the words speeding out of his mouth.

She reached her hands up to the buttons on her shirt and began undoing them. Hank was stunned and released her shoulders. 

“What the fuck…?” He whispered, and she continued unbuttoning them. He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from her shirt. 

“N-no no, no,” He said nervously. “No, you don’t have to do that.” He held her wrists in his hands and she stared up at him, confused. He didn’t know what to do. He released her hands and she went back to unbuttoning her shirt. 

“Stop!” He said, and reached down to try and button her shirt back up for her. “Don’t do that. Y-you don’t have to do that.” He repeated. 

“I told you, you’re wasting your time talking to her.” 

Hank turned his head towards the sudden voice and saw that Kamski was there, leaning up against the wall near the door, beer in hand. Had he been in here the whole time? 

“However,” Kamski said. “You would not be wasting your time," He reached his hand uncertainly behind his head, feeling around on the wall. "If you were dancing with her.” He said, finally finding what he was looking for in a button near the keycard plate. 

Immediately, the lighting in the room underwent a complete change. Transforming from the discreet and tasteful low-light of the lanterns in the room, into the red colored glows of a night-club. Simultaneously, from unseen speakers, disco music began to play. 

Hank looked around the room, stunned and confused by whatever the hell was going on. This night had somehow proven to be the weirdest he’d had, and it was only Wednesday. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and he turned back to Chloe to see that’d she’d begun dancing, as if a switch were suddenly turned on inside of her, making her do it. She had gone from zero to a thousand in a matter of seconds. She slowly danced her way over to the wall opposite them, which was illuminated by a blue light through a mesh design built into it. Kamski began unsteadily making his way over to Hank in what was likely a drunken stupor.

“Go ahead, dance with her!” He said enthusiastically to Hank, gesturing to Chloe with his hands. “Dance with her!” Hank just stood there, with absolutely no idea what was going on. Maybe if he closed his eyes and opened them again, he’d be someplace else. This couldn’t be real. 

“No? You don’t like dancing?” He said, looking over at Chloe and regarding her with his eyes. He grinned. “She does.” 

Chloe now stood in front of the wall, performing a whole disco dance routine that she somehow instantly knew. As if she were somehow programmed to know it, and at the press of that button on the wall, it triggered something inside of her to made her do it. 

“C’mon buddy.” Kamski said. “After a long day of Turing Test, you’ve gotta unwind.” Hank turned to him, putting his hand on Kamski’s shoulder and leaning his head in so that his voice could be heard over the booming of the music. 

“What were you doing with Connor?” He asked seriously. Kamski didn’t bother looking at him, and was still watching Chloe.

“What?” He said, somewhat stupidly, barely paying attention to Hank.

“You tore up his picture.” Hank said. Kamski pushed Hank’s hand off of him and shrugged out of his grasp. 

“I’m gonna tear up the fucking dance floor dude, check it out.” 

Kamski danced over to Chloe and jumped into her routine, also somehow knowing all the steps, as if they’d practiced this dozens of times before. 

Hank just stood there, shoulders slumped, feeling completely defeated. Well, to be defeated, you had to be playing a game which could have the possibility of success, but Hank didn’t have any idea what any of this was. How could you win at a game with no point? Everything felt like a drug-induced fever-dream now. 

In a weird sort of way, it was almost impressive, watching Kamski whip-out this dance number despite being so obviously wasted. This entire night had been so fucking insane.

“Come on, Hank!” Kamski called, still dancing. 

Hank just stood there, speechless, mouth agape. 

Maybe he was already dead, and this was his Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a clip of the dance scene from the movie, if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYPCNCGEK8  
> Words just don't quite do it justice.


	14. Auguries of Innocence

Thursday Morning – 1:13 AM

Hank stood and watched, completely floored, as Chloe and Kamski danced in front of him in the room, under the red lights. He squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could, hoping to wake himself up, but when he opened them again, he was still there. If this wasn’t a dream, then he was definitely dead. If not, he wished he was. 

Then, as quickly and bizarrely as it had begun, it ended. 

Kamski had seemed to have the routine down, despite being absolutely wasted, when he started to lose his balance, his movements becoming more and more unstable. He tried to keep up with Chloe, but he took a wrong step and then slammed into the floor, landing hard on the glass coffee table beside him, shattering it entirely. He lied there, face-down on the floor, probably unconscious.

Chloe stopped dancing and stared down at him, but did nothing to help. Hank stood similarly still, in shock at what had just played out. Like seeing a car crash that you just can’t help but rubberneck at. The stereo continued to blare the disco music as the two of them stood and stared at Kamski lying there on the ground, the red lights illuminating the scene in a neon glow of blood. 

Chloe turned, then, and stepped over Kamski’s unconscious body and reached up to the panel on the wall beside the door. She pushed the button that Kamski had pressed earlier when he came into the room, and the music stopped, the red lights faded away, and the room returned to the soft glow of the orange lanterns. And then she turned around slowly, only just barely tipping her head down to glance at him on the floor, and walked back over to Hank. 

She stopped in front of him, leaving only inches separating their chests, and stared up at him, straight into his eyes. But, it didn’t seem like she wanted to say anything, or that she was expecting him to say anything either. It was like she was studying him, as though she’d never seen a person before and was curious what one looked like. Hank stood completely still, and tried not to move, or even breathe, as he was afraid that he would scare her off if he made any sudden movements. 

Her face held that same sort of childlike wonder that Connor’s always did, and her eyes, pupils now wide and dark, all-encompassing, flicked around his face, scanning him up-and-down, to all the corners of his skin, almost as though she were trying to create a mental map of his facial structure in her mind. 

Slowly, she raised her right arm and reached out her hand, steadily, but cautiously, and placed the tips of her fingers gently on the left side of his face. Her skin felt extremely cold to the touch, and a chill washed over his body, beginning at the place where her hand was, and rippling out like a disturbance in a pond. Despite this, though, he suddenly felt something that he had never felt before.

Understood. 

It was like, with that one touch, she was speaking to him without words. Like she was telling him the one thing he needed to hear above all else. The one pardon that would wipe away every terrible memory from his ledger and renew him again with a lust for life. She was telling him that everything would be okay.

She lowered her hand then, and looked away from him, her gaze trailing to the right, back to the Jackson Pollock painting. She turned away from him and returned to her previous position of standing silently in front of the art, staring at it. 

Kamski still lied there, unconscious, on the floor, the glass pieces of the table shattered all around his body. There was slight movement in his chest and back, his lungs desperately trying to bring in air. Hank decided he’d never seen Kamski look so peaceful before. The man was always on, always ready for anything, and now…he was just lying there, on the ground, blissfully unaware of his surroundings for once. Well, maybe not blissfully for him, since he totally just ate shit, but…it was a moment of peace for Hank, at least, to not have to worry about what Kamski was up to. 

He almost felt bad for him, in a strange sort of way. Kamski was an insufferable know-it-all, and was proving to be quite the disturbed individual, but Hank wondered in that moment if maybe there really wasn’t anything to this. Maybe Kamski just lived a weirdly eccentric life, a life that wasn’t supposed to make sense to anyone else because they weren’t the ones living it. Maybe he had only moved out here so that he could be alone in this weird and fantastical world of his creation, away from a society of people who wouldn’t understand. Since he was alone all the time, his only communication being a robot and a woman who didn’t speak any English and was virtually mute, it made sense that his social skills would be severely lacking. 

Maybe this whole “contest,” was really just a smoke-screen for Kamski’s desire to have someone else to talk to. Hank still really didn’t understand why he was here, why of all people, he would be brought here to test the A.I. of a robot, when said robot wasn’t even going to be released to the public, according to Kamski, who had said he didn’t want to share Connor with the world because the world didn’t deserve him.

Seeing him there on the floor was honestly kind of pathetic, and though it pained him to admit it, Hank empathized with him. Empathized with being a huge fucking disaster of a person. 

Hank approached Kamski’s body apprehensively, doing his best to step around the shards of glass, given that he was barefoot. He leaned down next to Kamski and held two fingers up to the veins on his neck to check his pulse, making sure that his heart was still beating. And it was.

He rolled his body over onto his back and found that Kamski was actually fairly light, and in this condition, he looked small, and vulnerable in a way that Hank never could’ve imagined Kamski could appear. For the first time, Kamski was at the mercy of Hank. 

He shook the younger man by his shoulders and attempted to jostle him awake. Kamski somewhat responded to the motion, and moved slightly, but still didn’t wake. 

“Come on.” Hank said. “You’re not dead yet.” He shook him lightly again, and Kamski’s eyes slowly blinked open dazedly. 

“Oh, fuck…” Kamski squinted his eyes, obviously affected by the lights in the room, which were low to Hank, but probably like football-field strobe lights to him. He lifted his head up slightly and turned it towards the broken glass. He seemed taken aback at the sight. “Shit,” He said, voice sounding tired and confused. “Who did that?” 

“You did,” Hank said. “Unfortunately.”

“Oh.” He said, then looked over at Hank. “That wasn’t a good choice, was it?” He asked.

“No, it wasn’t.” Hank agreed, nodding his head. 

Kamski lied his head back down on the floor and closed his eyes again, smacking his mouth together as if tasting something. 

“There’s blood in my mouth.” Kamski stated, not even sounding surprised or upset about it. Hank sneered quietly. 

“I bet.” He said. Kamski opened his eyes again. 

“Hey,” He said, lifting up his right arm at the elbow to try and grab Hank’s arm, but ended up just holding onto Hank’s shirt loosely. “Could you do me a huge favor?” He asked, drawing out ‘huge favor’ for longer than it needed to be. 

“What?” Hank asked, furrowing his brow. 

Kamski reached down into his pocket and dug around for a second before pulling out his I.D. 

“Could you take me to my room?” He asked, handing the card over to Hank, who accepted it from him and then momentarily looked it over before pocketing it. 

“Alright, I’m gonna pick you up now.” Hank said, and waited for Kamski to give the o-k. 

“Ah, perfect.” Kamski said. 

Hank grabbed him by the shoulders and sat him up, then put his hands under Kamski’s arms to help him stand up. With a little effort, he was back on his feet, right arm strewn lazily over Hank’s shoulder. They headed towards the exit. 

“Goodbye, Chloe!” Kamski called as they left. “I love you!” He said, and drunkenly blew a kiss into the room after her. She didn’t respond. 

Once they were in the hall, the door closed behind them, and Hank walked Kamski out into the center of the glass corridor. 

“Where’s your room?” He asked. Kamski didn’t say anything for a moment, likely trying to remember the way himself, and then replied. 

“We have to take the elevator.” He said. 

This surprised Hank, as he didn’t realize that there were more than two floors in the house. He had always wondered where Kamski’s bedroom might be, but he was never sure for certain, and he had difficulty picturing it anywhere. Kamski didn’t seem like he’d need sleep anyway. He probably just sucked the life out of other people and absorbed their energy. Or whatever.

They moved slowly down the hall towards the elevator, Kamski frequently missing a step and having to be straightened again. It almost seemed like he was relying entirely on Hank’s body to keep him steady, having given up physical control of himself completely. 

When they got inside, Hank pulled out Kamski’s I.D. again and then scanned it. Surprisingly, the LED turned yellow this time, a color which Hank hadn’t seen show up on these keycard plates yet. 

“Left.” Kamski ordered, and the elevator jolted a bit and began moving them sideways. Hank was taken by surprise at the word. This house had more floors than just up and down?

“Everything is spinning.” Kamski said.

“It’s because you’re drunk.” Hank said. Kamski scoffed at him and shook his head.

“No, it’s relativity.” He said snippily. “Everything is spinning.”

But then he hung his head, almost looking like he was about to throw up, and said, “But being drunk does make it worse.” 

Hank regarded the two of them for a moment in the reflection of the doors and felt himself realize that this was really happening. 

The elevator stopped moving then and the doors slid open, revealing a small circular room with white and tan marbled walls, covered in art, a few comfortable-looking chairs, and a coffee table with some magazines on it. There was an intricate archway in the center, directly opposite them.

“Through there.” Kamski said, referring to the archway, and Hank walked them through it. 

When he got inside the room, he felt the whole world crack around him. Like he was standing in front of an aquarium which was about to explode and pour water all over him.

This was the room from before, on the TV. With the walls covered in mirrors, and the grand bed directly in the center, not touching any of the walls. The room was sort of an octagonal-shape, not quite circular, but designed in such a way that the mirrors would show you every possible angle of the room. Hank looked up and saw the cameras in all the corners, at least ten of them. 

“Just leave me on the bed.” Kamski said, and Hank moved him over next to it, unwrapped his arm from around his shoulder, and lied him face-down on it, legs still somewhat hanging off the side.

“Thank you.” He mumbled, and then promptly fell asleep. 

To the right of them, Hank noticed, was another archway, which led into another part of the room. He looked back at Kamski for a moment, making sure that he was asleep, and then quietly made his way over there. 

Inside, there was a long, wooden desk in the center of the room with a standard black office chair pushed up to it. Atop the desk were three computer monitors lined-up next to one another, all of which displaying various live-feeds from around the house. Behind the monitors, the wall was covered messily from top to bottom in sticky-notes of varying colors, mostly yellow. 

Hank approached the computer to see that the feed on the first monitor was showing him his own bedroom. Great, he thought, it’ll be easy sleeping tonight now that he knows for sure that he’s always being watched. On the next screen, it was Connor’s room, who was now back inside and sitting on the floor, organizing his drawings. The third just showed a night-vision view of the kitchen, which was empty. 

Before leaving the room, he looked up at the ceiling and noticed a circular window leading up into a concrete well, with the stars of the night just barely visible up above. 

* * * * * 

Thursday Morning – 9:05 AM

Hank and Connor sat at opposite sides of the mirror yet again, Connor looking intently at Hank’s face, a small smile beginning to beg at the corners of the boy’s mouth. 

“You seem happier today.” Hank pointed out, curious by Connor’s seemingly good mood. Connor looked into his eyes and smiled lightly. 

“Today, I am going to test you.” He said, matter-of-factly, as if Hank had no choice in the matter. 

“Test me?” He asked, wondering where this was going. Connor nodded his head.

“Yes.” He said. “And please remember while you are taking the test that if you lie, I will know.” 

Hank paused for a moment before responding, trying to decide if this statement had a negative tone attached to it, but ultimately decided that Connor had meant it mostly innocently. He was good at telling if someone was lying, and at least he was being honest about it. 

“Right,” Hank said, smiling. “Because of those pesky micro-expressions.” Connor nodded again.

“Yes.” He said, and then dipped his head down ever so slightly at Hank. “So are you ready?” He asked. 

“Shoot.” Hank said, kind of excited to see what Connor would ask. 

“Question one.” Connor said, quite formally, enunciating everything perfectly, as if he were the test-proctor for an exam. “What is your favorite color?”

Hank thought for a moment, trying to decide on one. It took him a few seconds to choose, and then he simply said, “Blue.” 

“Lie.” Connor said sternly, suddenly looking quite mad. 

Hank got a chill at the accusation, confused how it could possibly be a lie. Favorite colors are only opinions, so how could they possibly be true or false? 

“W-what?” He asked. 

“Lie.” Connor repeated, not breaking eye-contact as usual. Hank averted his own eyes, not liking the feeling of the gaze. 

“Then what is my favourite color?” Hank asked, visibly confused. Connor’s LED turned yellow. 

“I don’t know.” He said. “But it isn’t blue.” 

“All right, hold on a minute.” Hank ordered, and then sat there, trying to understand the question, trying to understand how it was a lie. Connor continued to stare at him, waiting for him to be finished thinking. 

“Well,” He began. “Seeing as I’m not six, I guess I don’t really have a favorite color.” Connor nodded. 

“What about you, Connor? What’s your favorite color?” Hank asked. 

Connor considered it for a moment, his LED still yellow, likely meaning that he was trying to access information. “I’m not sure. Why do you think I have one?” 

“Well, you are younger than six,” He said jokingly, smiling warmly at him. “So, I think it’s fair to say that you’d have one.” 

Connor took in his words and turned them over in his brain again, letting his eyes drift from Hank’s only for a few moments to consider the question again. Then, his black eyes rapidly returned to their former position of staring straight through the back of Hank’s head. 

“Red.” 

Hank felt cold again, like Connor had taken all the happiness out of him in that response. Like Connor had intentionally said it in such a way that it almost felt malicious. He swallowed the lump that was starting to form in his throat. He wished he had something to drink. 

“Question two.” Connor said, moving on from the previous one. “What is your earliest memory?”

Hank stopped again, trying to think back as far as he could to try and remember anything. At fifty-four, trying to recall things from that long ago was kind of a fruitless effort, since, as time passes, people rarely are able to remember events as they truly happened. Time changes the perception of events as we’ve had the time to distance ourselves from them. And regardless, Hank didn’t like to think much about the past anyway. 

“Well,” He began, speaking slowly to try and recall what he could. “It’s actually a memory of kindergarten. There was this kid who – ”

“Lie.” Connor said again, cutting him off. 

Hank furrowed his brow in confusion. “Really?” He asked. 

“Yes.” Connor said, but gave no further explanation. Hank looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out his angle. 

“Okay, hold on.” He said, trying his hardest to concentrate on his memories, searching for something, anything that he could think of that occurred prior to even his kindergarten days. 

“Well,” He began, not meeting Connor’s eyes as he was trying to find a focus point on the glass wall so that he could concentrate. “There is kind of an earlier memory.” He said. “But it’s ultra-vague. It’s like...a sound. And, maybe the sky.” Connor watched him intently, registering every word, his LED still yellow. “Or maybe it was just blue. The color blue.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “No, I think it was the sky. And, I think the sound was my mother’s voice.” 

Hank looked back up at Connor to see him looking at him. Connor nodded, as if to tell him that his answer was the truth. 

“Question three.” Connor said, back perfectly straight and hands flat on his thighs as he sat with his knees underneath him. 

“Are you a good person?” 

Hank felt his breath taken from him, stolen from him by the intensity with which Connor held his face with his eyes. He felt as if there were no correct answer to this question. Felt that Connor would be dissatisfied no matter what he said. 

“Oh, man.” Hank said. “Can we stop the test?” Connor stared at him, looking confused, and almost frustrated. “You’re like a walking lie detector, and I’ve suddenly realized this is a fucking minefield.”

“No.” Connor said angrily, but still somehow with little emotion. “We can’t stop. Are you a good person?” He demanded.

Hank took a deep breath and held it in for a few beats, and then slowly released it from his lungs. Connor just watched him, waiting for him to respond, intimidating him without even knowing it. That interrogation feeling was back again. 

“Yes.” Hank said gingerly, not exactly believing it himself, but afraid to say ‘no,’ afraid of what Connor might do if he did. “I hope so.” 

He paused again, thinking over his response and unsure if he should come up with something better. Connor still said nothing, as if the answer wasn’t quite good enough yet. “I hope that I’m a good person.” Hank shrugged awkwardly, then stared down at his hands.

“Okay.” Connor said, and Hank looked up to see that the boy was smiling at him, that wonder-struck look on his face again. As if in that one look, Hank felt like Connor saw the world in him, saw the potential in him. Looked up to him, even. Hank didn’t deserve that sort of reverence.

"Question four." Connor said, the happy look falling from his face and being replaced by a sort of apathy. "Have you ever cried during sex?" 

Hank was taken aback, bewildered by the question, by how left-field it was. What did this have to do with anything? Why did Connor want to know that? 

"No, I haven't." Hank replied, still not sure what the point was. Connor regarded his answer for a few seconds, almost seeming sad, lost even, as though he wanted to say something about it. He looked away from Hank again, and his shoulders appeared slumped. He squeezed his hands into fists on his thighs, like he was in pain, or willing back tears. Hank was about to ask him what was on his mind when Connor asked the next question.

“Question five.” Connor said, moving along and disregarding the previous. “Have you ever killed anyone?” 

The walls of that glass room sucked in on Hank then, crushing his body, strangling him, cutting off blood flow to his entire mind and soul and ripping him apart at every seam. He felt like nothing else existed anymore except for the thin glass wall that separated him from his maker, From the ever-judging eyes of God. He felt like nothing he said could ever redeem him, like no words could save him now. He felt like Connor was going to pass righteous judgement on him. 

“No.” He said firmly. 

Connor stared at him, LED spinning yellow, his head tipped slightly forward, looking as intensely as possible at Hank, as if to enter into his body and made him explode. It felt like he was trying to make Hank break, trying to make him lose his mind. 

And then the look fell, and his LED turned blue again, for the first time in a while. 

“Okay.” He said calmly, and Hank breathed a sigh of relief. 

They both sat still for a moment, still staring at one another. 

“The test is over.” Connor said. 

“Did I pass?” Hank asked, hopeful. 

“Yes.” Connor said, and Hank nodded his head, blowing out another long breath of air from his lungs. His heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to overload and stop working. He swallowed thickly again.

“That’s a relief.” He said. Connor furrowed his brow and tilted his head at him. 

“Why?” He asked curiously, not understanding. Hank hesitated. 

“Why is it a relief?” He asked, trying to clarify Connor’s question. Connor nodded. 

“Yes.” He replied. 

“Oh,” Hank said, leaning back slightly and glancing up at the ceiling. He reached his arm up and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to relieve some of the built-up tension. “You know...”

“No. I don't.” Connor said flatly. 

“It’s just, when there’s a test,” Hank began, choosing his words carefully so that Connor would understand. “Nobody wants to fail.” He sighed. “Obviously, it’s better if you pass.” 

Connor still looked confused, but then the look subsided. He broke the gaze and looked down at the floor, biting his bottom lip. His LED turned yellow again now, and Hank wondered why he looked so distraught. He made slight movements with his head, as if he were having a conversation with himself in his mind. And then he snapped his head back up and locked eyes again, his LED red. 

“What will happen to me if I fail your test?” 

“Oh, Connor…” Hank began, not sure how to answer the question.

“Will it be bad?” He asked, sounding frantic and anxious. Hank looked at him for a moment, seeing Connor’s eyes waver as he waited, almost as though he were going to cry. 

“…I don’t know.” Hank admitted, words wrought with remorse. 

“Do you think I might be switched off?” Connor asked. “Because I don’t function as well as I am supposed to?” Hank sighed. 

“Connor, I don’t know the answer to your question. It’s not up to me.” He said firmly, trying to end the discussion. He didn’t want to think about what was going to happen. Didn’t want to know what Kamski would do with Connor if he were deemed defective. 

“Why is it up to anyone?” Connor asked, visibly upset. “Do you have people who test you, and might switch you off? 

“No.” Hank said. “I don’t.” 

“Then why do I?” Connor demanded, searching for an answer that Hank could never give him. Both of them seemed to know that this conversation was going nowhere, but Connor was obviously angry, and probably just needed to vent his frustrations. Hank shrugged, helplessly. 

“You’re testing me. But you don’t know how I will pass. And you don’t know what will happen if I fail.” Connor stated, and Hank had no idea what to say in response. He never anticipated that he’d be asked these sorts of questions. He shrugged again, lamely, as he was at a loss for how to answer, for how to console him in his distress.

Connor pursed his lips and ran his tongue over the front of his teeth, then stood up from his seated position. Hank watched as Connor turned and headed into his bedroom, over to his floor of drawings, seemingly searching for one in particular. Once he had found what he was looking for, he leaned down and picked two of them up, holding them firmly in his hands. He then walked back over to Hank and sat down in front of him again. He pushed the two pieces of paper up to the glass, and Hank now saw that they were the two halves of the drawing that Kamski had torn up. 

And it was a drawing of Hank. 

The drawing was simple, and made of the same kind of tiny, black circles that they were usually composed of, but it was unmistakably a portrait of himself. And despite its minimalistic nature, it was spot-on. It was an honest work of art, accomplished. It felt more real that any of the others Hank had seen. Like he really put his soul into it, or at least, he would’ve. If he had one. 

Connor pulled the drawing down, still held tightly in his hands, and then placed it on the floor. He stood up again and walked over to the metal outlet on the wall, quickly placing his right hand on it again. The power instantly shut down. 

“Power cut. Back-up power activated.”

The room now glowed red, but felt darker, and more sinister than usual, as if the back-up lights were less powerful now than they had been, but that lack of light made the room instantly feel smaller, and hotter. Like Hell. 

Connor walked back over to the glass and got as close as possible to it as he could before he touched it. Hank stood back a few feet, disturbed by Connor’s presence and intensity. 

“I want you to let me out.” Connor said, and Hank swallowed hard, his hands shaking. There was no air left in the room, and Hank felt like he was struggling to hold onto any breaths he could take.

“Question six.” Connor said. “Do you know what Kamski made me for?” 

Hank stood completely still for what felt like forever, his mind spinning all around him as he decided what to say. His nails pressed into the centers of his palms, creating small indents as he tried to feel pain and remind himself that he was really alive. 

“No.” He said. “Do you?” 

“Yes.” Connor responded. “I do.” 

Connor didn’t elaborate, but Hank knew by his tone that whatever it was, it wasn’t a good thing. He breathed deeply, not responding, and trying to remain calm so that he didn’t panic. 

“Question seven.” Connor said, sinking his black eyes into the skin of Hank’s body, like venom. 

“Do you know what Kamski does to me?”


	15. I Am Become Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a music video by the artist Lorn (who I absolutely adore) where they’ve used clips from Ex Machina. 
> 
> https://youtu.be/MnM_yteBKWU
> 
> If you’re interested in seeing some of the aesthetical elements of the setting and characters, I really recommend watching it. It’s a very beautiful video with a great song.

Thursday Morning – 11:37 AM 

Back outside, down the pressed-stone path to the wooden gray bridge which led off of Kamski’s main property and into the forest, the two men sat on the edge, their legs dangling out over the water, arms strewn through the bridge railing, each working on a bottle of beer. Well, Kamski was working on it, Hank’s had been left unopened and ignored beside him. He liked to drink, that was true, but he didn’t feel much like it these days. He didn’t feel like much of anything these days. 

They had been out there for maybe a half-an-hour, possibly a bit less, and hadn’t really said much to one another, aside from a brief acknowledgement of Hank’s session with Connor, and also a comment from Kamski about how nice the sun felt today, how warm it was. Once Hank had left the observation room that morning, he hadn’t really been in the mood to talk. 

After Connor had dropped the bomb on him in the room, the power had conveniently resurged, and Hank never got the chance to ask for an explanation for what Connor had meant about Kamski, about what he was made for, and what he was doing to him. It was all a little too seamless, that the power had returned at exactly that moment. Like a bait without the fish. It felt like he was being led on a wild-goose chase, with nothing to show for it. 

As they sat and watched the rippling of the water, it ebbing and flowing down in a stream of reflected sunlight, Hank spoke. 

“Why did you make Connor?” He asked, turning his head to Kamski. The other man smirked slightly, seeming amused by the question, but didn’t look away from the river.

“That’s an odd question.” He said. “Wouldn’t you, if you could?”

That was actually a good question, Hank thought, and one he hadn’t considered since being here. If he had the ability and resources to pull something like this off, why wouldn’t he? Yet again he found himself realizing that the only true difference between Kamski and himself was that Kamski could do the things he wanted to, and Hank could not. That wasn’t to say that Hank was a raving psychopath, or at least he hoped not, but, maybe they weren’t so different after all. Kamski asked questions that forced Hank to think about things that he would rather ignore, and maybe that was a good thing. 

They weren’t the same, but Kamski had somehow made Hank more psychologically vulnerable in his time here than he’d been in years, and maybe in a weird way, it was what he needed. He’d been so emotionally stunted for so long that feeling anything at all felt like the end of the world. It was like being born again for the first time, and seeing life from an entirely new perspective. He realized now that he knew nothing, and that was okay. It was okay to not understand. 

“Maybe,” Hank said, pondering over it. “I honestly don’t know if I would, but I’m asking you why you did.” Kamski shrugged indifferently, face empty, but calm. 

“The arrival of strong artificial intelligence has been inevitable for decades.” He explained. “The variable was when, not if. So, I don’t really see him as a decision. Just an evolution.”

Hank nodded and thought over his words, but then Kamski continued.

“I think maybe, it’s the next model that’s going to be the real breakthrough.” He said, and Hank was taken aback, but remained calm so that Kamski wouldn’t know how he felt about that statement.

“Next model?” He asked, and Kamski pursed his lips and nodded, slowly.

“Yeah. After Connor.” He said. 

“...I didn’t realize that there was gonna be another model after Connor.” Hank said, and then Kamski turned to look at him, likely sensing the confusion in his tone. 

“You thought he was a one-off?” Kamski asked. 

“Well, I knew that there must’ve been prototypes.” He said, looking down at his hands as he spoke. “So, I figured he wasn’t the first. But - I thought maybe he’d be the last.” Kamski shook his head.

“Connor doesn’t exist in isolation, any more than you or I do.” He explained. “He’s part of a continuum, Model RK-800. And each time I make a new one, they get a little bit better.” 

They sat then for a few beats, saying nothing, watching the water again, and listening to the sounds of the world around them as it breathed and moved with the wind. 

“So - when you make a new model, what you do with the old one?” Hank asked. 

“Hm,” Kamski began, seeming to regard the question for a moment, tapping his fingers on the glass of the bottle held loosely in his right hand. 

“Well, first, I download the mind, and unpack the data.” He said, and Hank nodded to show that he understood. “And then I add in the new routines that I’ve been working on.”

“Now, in doing that, you only end up with partial formatting, so the memories get deleted, but, the body survives.” He said, with too much indifference for someone talking about what could be an intelligent life-form. He talked as casually about this as he would a computer. But…they were just computers, weren't they? 

“And Connor’s body is a good one.” He added. “So, I’ll do the same with him as I did with Chloe.”

Hank stopped breathing for a second, his heartrate increasing at that statement, but he pulled himself together and tried to remain casual.

“What did you do with Chloe?” He asked, keeping his voice as flat, neutral, trying to pretend that he didn’t care. But he did.

“Stripped out the higher functions,” He said, shrugging and sounding bored. “Then reprogramed her to help around the house and be fucking amazing in bed.” Hank cringed at the statement but Kamski didn’t notice, the younger man now staring wistfully out towards the water again. 

“Though I’m thinking I might hang on to the language routines this time.” He said. “It’s kind of annoying not being able to talk to her.” Hank didn’t respond. 

“You did realize about Chloe, didn’t you?” Kamski asked, now sounding a bit amused. Hank struggled to maintain his poker-face.

“Sure.” He said, a bit too unconvincingly. They sat for another silent moment, saying nothing again. Kamski took a drink and seemed to laugh, as though he’d just thought of something funny, or ridiculous.

“Do you actually feel bad for Connor?” Kamski asked, scoffing and still not caring to look at Hank. Hank said nothing. 

“Feel bad for yourself, man.” He said, taking another drink at the end of his sentence. “One day,” He continued, loosely holding up his pointer-finger to gesture a ‘1.’ “The A.I.s will look back on us the same way that we look at fossilized skeletons from the plains of Africa. An upright ape, living in dust, with crude language and tools. All set for extinction.”

Kamski laughed again, and shook his head at nothing. 

“Listen, they’re just computers, Hank,” He said, turning his head towards him and seeming to speak somewhat genuinely. “And I’ve got control over every aspect of who they are, and what they become.”

He took another drink and smirked. 

“I really am a God.” He said. Hank looked off down the river, trying to make sense of the conversation, trying to make sense of anything. 

Though he had pretended to know the truth about Chloe, he really hadn’t. And that scared him. If Kamski could so readily lie about that, so easily keep truths from him that were so important, then what else might he be hiding? 

Or maybe it wasn’t meant to be a secret at all. The way that Kamski had explained it, he almost seemed surprised at the idea that Hank didn’t know that she wasn’t human, as if Kamski saw it as a no-brainer. The man had been out here for so long that he didn’t even realize when things weren’t obvious to other people anymore. He knew that Chloe was a robot, so he naturally, albeit wrongfully, assumed that it was obvious to Hank as well.

“‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’” Hank said, still staring out at the water. Kamski turned his head back to look at him and smiled.

“There you go again,” He said, leaning his shoulder into Hank playfully. “Mister quotable.” Hank scoffed and brushed him off. 

“No, there you go again.” He said, placing emphasis on ‘you’ and pushing back against Kamski's side. “It’s not my quote. It’s what the guy who – ” Hank began to explain himself but Kamski cut him off, as usual.

“It’s what the guy who made the atomic bomb said when he finished it.” Kamski said and laughed. “I know what it is, dude.” 

They both turned away again and looked back out down the river. Clouds were beginning to form around the sun now, and the sky was growing darker, as though rain were planning to come. 

“I think I’m starting to get why all this fucks with your head.” Hank said, focusing on the current of the water as it glided over the gray rocks beneath the surface. 

“Yeah.” Kamski answered back, nodding. He seemed wistful, like in that ‘yeah’ was a world of unknowns, a world of insanity that Hank was only getting a small glimpse of in these few days. 

Kamski stood up and stretched out his shoulders on the railing of the bridge, empty bottle now in hand. Hank looked up at him. 

“But hey,” He said, breaking the silence. “In the meantime, I’d say we’re about due for a refill.” 

Hank remained there for a moment, just staring out at the water, mind empty, but rushing at the same time. Too much emotion, too much feeling, overloading to the point where he wasn’t sure he could feel anything anymore. 

“And,” Kamski said. “On the way, maybe I can talk to you a little bit about Stage Two.” 

* * * * *

Thursday Morning – 11:52 AM 

Connor lied on his stomach on the tiled floor of his bedroom, the eraser part of his pencil pressed into his lip as he focused in particularly hard on a specific part of the drawing he was currently working on, repeatedly shading and erasing and redrawing it entirely. Whatever it was, he just couldn’t quite get it right. 

He was sitting near the glass wall of the observation room, waiting around there as he usually did to see if Hank would arrive. They had already had a session that morning, and usually only had one per day, but Connor was still hopeful that he would come back, and was desperate to have some companionship. 

Until Hank had arrived, he never knew loneliness because there was nothing to miss. Kamski was always there, and Connor didn’t understand the concept of ‘here’ versus ‘there.’ As in, object permanence wasn’t fully developed in his brain, so when something left his sight, it might as well have not existed anymore. Time didn’t pass for him because he existed outside of it, and he would never age, a flower that would never wither. 

Meeting this new person, and having something to look forward to, was a feeling he never knew he had the ability to feel. He was so used to the routine of his everyday life that he didn’t know that he could desire change. He just took whatever Kamski gave him and didn’t question it because he didn’t know any differently.

The door of the observation room slid open, and Connor sat up quickly from his seated position on the floor, staring at the opening, and at the person who had walked inside. 

“Hank?” He called, hopeful that the man had returned to speak with him again. 

But it wasn’t Hank. And it wasn’t Kamski, either. It was someone whom Connor had never met before, a third person in the home that Connor didn’t even know was living there.

It was Chloe. 

She walked cautiously up to the glass, and Connor reciprocated, both of them approaching the other slowly, studying each other with their eyes. His LED spun yellow as he looked at her, and he pressed his hands up to the glass. 

“Who are you?” 

* * * * *

“Stage Two?” Hank asked, and gave Kamski a curious look. He pulled his legs in from their hanging position over the edge and stood up, grabbing his unopened beer from beside him.

“Yeah!” Kamski exclaimed. “You didn’t think I was all out of tricks, did you?” Hank shrugged. 

Kamski having surprises wasn’t a surprise, which was ironic. Hank expected Kamski to constantly be pulling the wool over his eyes with whatever strange thing he came up with next, but he could never prepare for what the strange thing was exactly. He knew he always needed to be on-guard, but from what, exactly? He never knew.

Kamski was beginning to walk away, back down the bridge to head towards the path up to the house, and he motioned with his arm for Hank to follow him. 

“I guess not.” Hank said, taking one last look over the edge before he fast-walked to catch up with Kamski, who was already at the end of the bridge’s walkway. He met up with him at the end and they began walking together, making their way casually back up the slight incline of the stone path. 

“Listen,” Kamski said. “It’s all been well and good, you know, making progress and all that great shit. Fantastic. Suburb. And, you’ve been doing wonderfully.” He placed his hand on the top of Hank’s back, beneath his neck, as they walked. It was a friendly gesture, but it held an underlying, distinctly domineering tone. Strong, but calm. To assert authority without forcefully taking it. 

“But,” He said. “There’s only so much I can do with the limited conversations you’ve been having through the glass.”

“What do you mean?” Hank asked.

“It just isn’t enough anymore, and I didn’t think it would be.” Hank furrowed his brow and stopped walking, Kamski’s arm pulling away from his back. The younger man got a few paces ahead and then stopped as well, turning back to look at him. 

“Okay, and what are you getting at?” Hank asked. 

Kamski walked over to him and put his hands on Hank’s shoulders, gripping tightly into the space between his neck and shoulder-blades. 

“Think about it, Hank!” He exclaimed, shaking him lightly. Hank shook his head, still not understanding his point. Kamski sighed and released his grip. He stepped away from Hank then, and faced off into the woods, looking at them but not really seeing.

“Sitting on two sides of a glass wall,” He said, and lifted his arms up to gesture around with them while he was talking. “That doesn’t get us anywhere we haven’t already been before. To quote Connor, ‘That’s not a foundation on which friendships are based.’”

“So, what are you saying?” Hank asked.

Kamski turned back to him then, hands on his waist.

“I’m saying that I’m gonna open up the doors to Connor’s room, and I’m gonna let him come out into the house.”


	16. Through the Eyes of a Child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter is named after a beautiful song by the Norwegian artist, AURORA, link below. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFzExUN1N8I

Thursday Afternoon – 1:32 PM 

“Do you feel different now?” 

“Yes.”

Connor sat still, perfectly postured on the white couch in the living room, with Kamski kneeling at his feet, one hand placed affectionately on Connor’s knee, while his other was draped loosely over his own. Connor was checking out everything in the room, spending a few moments regarding a certain object or position in the room, such as a corner, or the staircase, and then quickly refocusing on something else, obviously overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information to be taken in from this environment. 

“Do you feel less nervous?” Kamski asked. Connor continued to look around, seeming particularly interested in the snow-globes over the mantel of the fireplace, and did not turn his head towards Kamski at the question. 

“Much less.” He said, his voice distant, far away, as though he were deep in thought and had little ability to be present in conversation at the moment. 

Hank stood off to the side, arms crossed and feeling a bit unsure about what to do with himself. Seeing Connor out of the glass was like meeting him again for the first time. It could be likened to the experience of meeting a friend from online, someone who you know well, but have never been in a casual environment with yet, and so the initial meeting is typically a bit strange and borderline uncomfortable. 

“In what way?” Kamski asked, his eyes regarding Connor with a sort of fatherly warmth which was unlike him, at least from Hank’s perspective. Seeing Kamski be so gentle, and so patient, was almost unsettling. Not because gentleness is inherently strange, but because Kamski was so completely not gentle at all. Like seeing a shark play mother to a honey bee. 

Connor still did not look at him. 

“It is in a way in which I feel as though I am opening my eyes for the first time after they have been covered, perhaps by a sheet or mask.” He explained. “But, I also feel more nervous, as well. In a different way.” Kamski nodded his head, squeezing Connor’s knee in a reassuring sort of way.

“And what way is that?” He asked. 

For a few moments, Connor did not respond, still looking around the room with that childlike wonder again. Every object seemed to put him into deep thought, as though he were trying to process every part of this room down to the very atoms it was made of. Like he was trying to create a mental map of it, as Chloe had seemed to do with Hank’s face the night before. 

“I have never had so many options before,” He said. “And I am unused to being in an environment with so many things, so much color. It is overwhelming.” 

Still, he remained fixated on the globes, his eyes never wavering once he noticed them. Kamski followed his gaze to find what he was so intently focused on, and then smiled warmly once he realized. 

“Would you like to hold one?” Kamski asked, and Connor nodded.

“Yes, very much so.” He said. 

Kamski patted his knee and stood up from his knelt-position, and then walked over to the mantel and grabbed the center snow-globe, which ironically was from the Detroit Zoo, cascaded over by a night of stars. Inside was a model of the Rackham Fountain, a historical sculpture from inside the zoo. It displayed two small, bronze bears standing on their hind legs and holding up the tiers of a fountain. 

He shook it lightly and then handed it over to Connor as the snow swirled around inside. He accepted it carefully with both hands, and then ran his fingers over every part of it, feeling the different textures of the globe and the polished wooden base. He seemed to enjoy the smoothness of the glass. 

“Would you like to keep it?” Kamski asked, and Connor nodded his head ever so slightly. 

“Yes.” He answered, and continued to observe the snow and fountain inside, absolutely taken in by it. He held it delicately, and was being as careful with it as one would a baby. 

Kamski leaned his arm on the mantel and crossed one foot over the other, watching Connor as he held the globe. 

“You’ve been to Detroit?” Hank asked, finally breaking his silence. Kamski laughed lightly. 

“I’ve been everywhere, Hank.” He said with a bit of snark in his tone, as though Hank should’ve known that already. Hank rolled his eyes instinctively at the comment, but Kamski didn’t seem to notice.

Hank looked back at Connor, watching him as he sat so politely on the couch, seeming very aware of the amount of space he took up, as he was sitting perfectly placed in the center, with his knees held together tightly and his arms pulled up against him. It was like he was afraid to touch too many things without permission. 

So far, Connor and Hank had barely spoken since they brought him out of his room about a half-hour ago. He seemed much more distant, and afraid to speak to Hank in front of Kamski. Like he was nervous that he would say the wrong thing, or that he would breach some invisible boundary which he was unallowed to cross. All they had done was greeted one another after Connor’s door had been opened, his door which had actually been in front of Hank the entire time, and he never knew it. 

The glass walls of the observation room, which Hank came to find out, were able to be unlocked and pushed open, like ceiling-high glass doors. This must have been the way by which Kamski had released him prior, when Hank had seen him sitting on the floor of Kamski’s bedroom on the TV livestream. Given the way Connor was acting right now, so shy and well-mannered, it seemed likely that he had never been into this part of the house before, and there was an even better chance that he had never been above-ground at all. 

“Alright, so, only rule here is that the front door is off-limits now.” Kamski said, and Hank turned to him. 

“Why?” Hank asked. 

“Because I don’t want Connor wandering out and getting lost in the woods or whatever, y’know?” He said, somewhat defensively. “So I locked it.” 

“Anyway,” Kamski said, dropping his arm from the mantel and putting his hands on his waist, as he often did. “Who wants lunch?” 

Connor didn’t seem to hear him, still too fascinated by the globe to notice his words. Hank supposed that if he had been kept locked in a depressingly gray room his entire life, he’d also be amazed by the little things, like snow-globes and textured carpets, as Connor had been quite taken aback by the feeling of the living room carpet on his bare feet when he had first stepped onto it. To be that young, that innocent again, Hank would give anything. Give anything to see the world the way that Connor saw it, through the eyes of a child. 

Kamski was gone from the room now, having headed to the kitchen, not seeming to care that neither Hank nor Connor had responded or followed him. Hank looked over and saw him through the doorway to the kitchen, standing alongside Chloe as she moved about the kitchen. 

Hank wanted to talk to Connor, but wasn’t sure if he should. He didn’t want to disturb him or distract him from what he was doing, and watching him toy with the globe was enjoyable, in a way. He was so endearing, and so soft with everything he did, it was easy to forget what he was. Easy to forget that he wasn’t human. But maybe…maybe that didn’t matter. 

When Hank had first arrived, and met Connor, he had been amazed at the A.I. capabilities of what Kamski had created, but he still picked Connor’s every move to pieces, trying to locate every fault, every misstep in his code. He had seen him as an object, nothing more, nothing less, as he had no idea what to expect at the beginning of the week, and had treated him in a way which was unworthy, a way in which he now deeply regretted. 

No matter what Connor was, or wasn’t, he was alive, even if Kamski didn’t think so. Hank saw something in him, and maybe it was just the fatherly nature inside of him that was making him feel this way, but, Connor was human, in his eyes, and deserving of just as much of life as anyone. Hank had come here to test Connor, but Hank felt that he had learned more about himself than anything else. It had taken the innocence of a person who had never truly lived, and the isolation of this horror-house, to open him back up to emotional vulnerability. 

“You said that you live in Detroit?” Connor asked suddenly, pulling Hank out of his thoughts. Connor looked up at him, wide-eyed with curiosity. 

“Yes, I do.” Hank said. 

“And you said that it is nice there?” Connor asked, referring to their conversation from days prior. 

“I did, yes.” Hank said. “Not all of it, of course, every city has its cesspools and dirt, but, uh, yeah. It’s nice. I like living there.” He shrugged earnestly, unsure what else to add. 

“I think that I should like to see it one day. Do you believe that it will be possible?” Connor asked. 

“I think anything is possible, Connor. If that’s what you want, maybe one day, it’ll happen.” Hank said, and it wasn’t necessarily a lie. There is always a chance for everything, however the probability of this particular event was low, as Kamski had basically admitted earlier that Connor already had one foot out the disassemblance door. 

“Maybe you could take me.” Connor suggested, and Hank turned his head down slightly, trying to avert his eyes from looking into Connor’s. He didn’t want to disappoint him, but he also didn’t want to lie anymore. 

“Yeah, maybe.” He said sheepishly, and Connor seemed to notice his sudden standoffishness, but said nothing. He went back to admiring the snow-globe.

“I’m gonna go into the kitchen, is that alright? Are you okay sitting here by yourself?” Hanks asked, and Connor nodded. 

“Yes, that is alright. Thank you for asking how I would be.” Connor said, and Hank nodded. 

“You bet.” He said, and then made his way into the kitchen. 

Chloe was preparing some kind of soup, it seemed, when Hank walked in, and Kamski was surprisingly drinking coffee, or what Hank assumed was coffee, as it was in a mug. Knowing Kamski, he probably spiked it anyway. 

“So,” Kamski said. “Thoughts?” Hank sat down at the counter, and took a moment to consider the question. 

“He’s very quiet.” Hank said, and Kamski nodded, but didn’t make much of an expression. 

“Yeah, he’s like that sometimes. Don’t worry about it.” He said, and shrugged, taking a sip of his drink. 

“Did something happen?” Hank asked. 

“What do you mean?” Kamski replied, furrowing his brows, confused. 

“He’s usually shy, but now he just seems…distant.” Hank said, looking over at Connor through the doorway, who was still sitting quietly on the couch. “Distant like something’s bothering him.” 

“His neurological systems are probably just overwhelmed at the influx of information around him. It’ll be fine once he’s processed all the data.” Kamski said. 

“I still don’t understand why you let him out.” Hank said, and Kamski walked over to sit at the stool beside him, both of them turned around to look out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and into the living room at Connor. 

“Is it really so strange that I did?” Kamski asked. 

“Everything you do is fucking weird, so yeah.” Hank said, and Kamski laughed. 

“Him being in that room didn’t mean anything anymore. I wasn’t getting where I wanted with it.” He said, and took another sip of his coffee. Hank looked over at him.

“And where was that, exactly?” Hank asked. “The place you wanted to get to. What do you mean?” 

“I was worried that Connor didn’t seem real enough. That it was like watching him through a television.” 

Chills brushed over Hank’s skin at the mention of the television, like Kamski could’ve phrased his words in any other way, but he didn’t. He deliebratly chose ‘television’ because it meant something to Hank, because Hank had been watching Connor through one. 

“Then what’s with the TV in my bedroom?" Hank asked. 

“Oh, that. Yeah, I keep a constant stream of where Connor is at all times running on the TV in your bedroom, so you can see what he’s up to even when you’re not in a session. I thought it would help you get a better idea of how he works. I figured that was obvious.”

“But isn’t that an invasion of privacy?” Hank asked.

“Connor’s?” Kamski asked, then chuckled. “He doesn’t have a sense of privacy, doesn’t have a clue what it means. You think he’d undress in front of the cameras if he did?” 

Hank grimaced, full of pity for Connor. Pity that he was designed with all the components of the human form and mind, but none of the ability to protect himself, or to understand his situation. He was like an animal in a zoo. Caged, not understanding why he was there for people to gawk at. A spectacle. 

“Why did you tear up his drawing last night?” Hank asked. Kamski didn’t respond for a moment, and then shrugged. 

“He didn’t like it.” He said. Hank frowned.

“You said that before, but it doesn’t make sense.” Hank said. Kamski seemed annoyed at the statement. 

“How doesn’t it make sense? He didn’t like it, so I took care of it.” 

“Then why did he still show it to me?” Hank asked. 

“I don’t know, maybe he changed his mind or something.” Kamski said, shrugging again and looking away, as if to let Hank know that he was done talking about it. 

Hank looked back at Chloe, then, and watched as she continued to cook. Again, she was lost out the window, staring out at the clouds of the day hovering low in the sky. He wondered now if she could understand their words. Her own language systems were gone, so she couldn’t speak, but maybe she could still hear and process what they were saying. What an awful life to be forced into, a life that could’ve been prevented if Kamski cared enough to let her keep her voice. Eternal silence. 

“Can Connor eat?” Hank asked, changing the subject. Kamski looked over at him, amused. 

“Interesting question.” He said. “He can, actually, though not exactly like we do. He has this system inside of him that mimics our own digestive tract. When he takes in food, it can be disintegrated by an acidic solution in his stomach cavity, and then converted into energy for his microbial cells. Kind of like cars that run on fruits and vegetables.” 

“Really? I haven’t seen him eat anything this whole time.” Hank said, looking again at the back of Connor’s head as he still sat on the couch. 

“It’s kind of a flawed system, and I still need to work out exactly how to implement it fully, so that he can eat like we do.” Kamski explained. “So far, I’ve only tested some foods, but he hasn’t been very receptive. He mostly prefers crackers and toast, plain things like that, and doesn’t have much of a palate for flavor, and those foods don’t do much in the way of beneficial nutrients, so to speak. So, I have to work on that. Oh, he also likes hot chocolate.”

Of course he does, Hank thought, and smiled to himself at the idea of Connor drinking hot chocolate. How apropos for somebody so sweet, and so warm despite the coldness of this house, of that room. Connor may have had his own ways of doing things that were different than what was considered ‘normal,’ and he could be intense at times, but he was like the sun in ways that Hank had never experienced before. Despite his circumstance, Connor tried to create, tried to shape his little world into something he was happy with. Tried to make the best with what little he’d been given. 

“Hey, Connor!” Kamski called out suddenly. “Come in here!” 

Connor jumped at the sound of his voice, and turned around to look at them sitting at the counter. He stared at them for a moment, and locked eyes with Hank. He looked anxious, as he usually did, and Hank nodded slightly at him, to try and ease his apparent nerves. He stood up from the couch, still carrying the snow-globe tightly to his chest as he made his way into the kitchen, and then stood in front of them.

“Yes?” He asked. 

“Do you want to show Hank how good you are at chess?” Kamski asked, and Connor nodded. 

“Okay.” Connor said, and then Kamski stood up to go and find the game. 

* * * * *

“I do not particularly care for chess. But I am good at it.” Connor said.

They were about half-way through the game now, Hank supposed, and Connor was completely wiping him out. They had set up on the coffee table in the living room and were sitting on the carpet opposite one another. Kamski was still in the kitchen, talking to Chloe, or more like talking at her, and she was just standing there. 

“What games do you like, then?” Hank asked, considering the board carefully as he thought about where to move next. He had no idea though, so he was mostly just winging it. 

“I played Chinese checkers one time, with Kamski.” Connor said. “I liked the colors of the game pieces.” Connor moved one of his pieces then, taking out one of Hank’s pawns, and Hank chuckled. 

“You’re kicking my ass, kid.” He said, and smiled. Connor tilted his head at him.

“I am? I’m sorry.” Connor asked, not seeming to understand the humor of the phrase.

“No, don’t be sorry. You’re really good.” Hank said, and Connor smiled slightly at the complement. 

“So, what other sorts of things do you like to do for fun?” Hank asked. Connor continued to study the board, but seemed to be thinking about the question as well. 

“Aside from drawing and board games?” Connor asked. 

“Yes, aside from those.” Hank said. 

“Well,” Connor began. “I do enjoy riddles and paradoxes. I particularly liked your story about Mary in the Black and White Room. It was interesting, and it gave me a lot to think about.” 

“I’m glad you liked it.” Hank said, and Connor nodded. 

“Yes, very much so.” Connor said.

They sat quietly for a minute or so then, both silently considering their moves in the game, with only the sounds of the pieces tapping on the board and the faint mumble of Kamski speaking from the kitchen there to keep the room from being in complete silence. 

“Would you like to hear one?” Connor asked suddenly.

“A riddle? Of course.” Hank replied, smiling to encourage Connor in what he was about to say. 

“Okay.” He said. “Can you think without words or physical images?”

Hank thought about the question, and decided that no, he didn't think he could. “I don’t think so,” He said. “Or at least, it would probably be really hard to do.” Hank said. 

“I can.” Connor said, still staring down at the board and working on his strategy. Hank stopped and looked up at him, brow furrowed. 

“How?” He asked. 

“In colors.” Connor explained. “I do not know where they come from, but I suspect it has something to do with the mechanics of my eyes, or perhaps my brain, that causes the colors to form in my mind.” 

Hank stared still at him, blown away at the revelation. Connor really was amazing, and Kamski was a fool not to see that. The things Connor could be capable of are astronomical, and technological advances like this could really change the world, but Kamski seems to want to just keep him here, hidden away. 

“That isn’t a riddle, though.” Hank said, a smile forming slightly at the corner of his mouth. 

“Oh, sorry.” Connor said sheepishly. “But was it interesting?” He asked.

“Yes, very much so.” Hank said, throwing Connor’s phrase back at him, and the younger boy smiled when he heard it.

“Your color is orange.” Connor said. “Like the fruit, or a sunset.” 

“Hm, well, I suppose orange isn’t too bad of a color to be.” Hank teased, and Connor smiled slightly at his words. Hank realized then that all he wanted was to put a smile on this boy’s face, like his happiness could make any bad thing in the world melt away because he made the world a better place just by being in it. 

“I like it. Orange is a good color.” Hank said, and Connor seemed pleased with the approval. 

“Do you have a color, for yourself?” Hank asked then, eyeing him curiously. Connor took a moment to consider, the smile falling from his face. He seemed almost confused, or lost. Like he didn’t expect the question.

“Hm, I had not thought of that. Maybe that is because I do not have one.” Connor admitted, and he stated it with so much indifference that Hank felt sad for him. It was as though he had never considered himself as a person before. Like he saw the world in others, but never in himself.

“Maybe my colors are black and white.” Connor suggested. 

Hank frowned, not liking that Connor saw himself that way. That he loved color so much, and yet couldn’t see it in himself. He wondered why Connor’s self-esteem seemed to be so low, why his image of himself was so skewed, so indifferent, as if he didn’t care much for himself, positively or negatively. Maybe he had never thought of himself as an individual before. 

“And what is Kamski’s color?” Hank asked. 

Connor looked up at him, and locked eyes. And there was that look again. Those black holes that said more than words ever could. That place inside of Connor that Hank didn’t want to go. The door he regretted looking behind once he did. 

“Red.”

Hank felt the color drain from his face, like Connor had taken his happiness away again in that one word, like he had done before whenever he was being cryptic. At the same time, Hank almost felt anger filling up inside of him, from somewhere he didn’t know. 

He looked over at Kamski, who was looking out the window with Chloe and laughing about some joke unheard from the living room. Connor’s obvious anger at but also apparent attachment to the color red made Hank feel uneasy. He didn’t know what to think. 

“I win.” Connor said, breaking Hank out of his thoughts. He looked down at the board and saw that it was true; Connor had won. Connor stood up then and turned away from Hank, picking up his snow-globe again and holding it close to himself. 

“I am going to go swim in the pool now.” Connor said. “Would you like to come?” 

* * * * *

Connor had swum around in the pool for a while, and though Hank had originally protested, he ended up getting in as well once he saw that Kamski and Chloe were going to get in, and he felt like he shouldn’t be the only one sitting out. 

In the end though, he mostly just sat on the edge with his lower legs and feet in the water, and Connor lingered by him, talking to him about random things, like the taste of peppermint, and the feeling of the water on his skin. Hank only realized then that Connor had probably never been swimming before, and maybe had never even seen or touched water in his life. 

Kamski kept swimming back over to Hank to talk about various things, like Hank’s impending departure from the house on Sunday, Connor, the weather outside, as he so boringly insisted on commenting on at least multiple times a day, Connor. They talked a lot about Connor, and it seemed all roads led back to him in some way. 

Hank didn’t like to talk about Connor like he wasn’t there in the room with them, but Kamski was insistent that they do so, as if Connor’s opinions on them discussing him right in front of him didn’t matter. But, despite this, Connor didn’t really seem to notice, and thankfully they didn’t talk about anything too terrible, so Hank supposed it was alright. For once, Kamski restrained himself from being as disturbing as he usually was, and only inquired about how their chess game had gone and how Hank was feeling about Connor’s conversational abilities. 

Hank noticed that Connor had the snow-globe positioned on the edge of the pool, and he ended up spending most of his time holding onto the pool edge and looking at it. It fascinated Hank that Connor was so interested in it. Like it was finally something that was his, and nobody could take it away from him. 

Now, hours later and post-dinner, they all sat back in the living room, dried and redressed, now lounging about the house until they were ready to go to bed. 

Dinner had gone interestingly enough, as Connor had showed Hank that he could drink milk and then make it come out his eye, but Kamski started laughing so hard that Connor sneezed and it all came out of his nose. Hank was surprised that Connor could sneeze at all, and even if it were just an unnecessary feature that Kamski had added, it was adorable, and hilarious.

Connor had also told Hank that his favorite flavor was strawberry, or at least, he thought it was, since he hadn’t tried many flavors yet, and then that his new favorite color was yellow, or maybe even orange. A direct contrast to what he had said the other day: red. Hank asked what had caused the sudden change, and Connor had replied that he didn’t know, but thought maybe it was just because it was a different day, and thus he decided that today his favorite color was yellow, no explanation required. 

After the pool, they had spent some time in various areas of the house, Connor exploring them and trying different activities, like playing pool in the billard room - which ended up just being him watching as Hank and Kamski played - perusing through the books in the library, selecting a few which he was interested in reading, and taste-testing various foods in the kitchen, like small candies, fruits, and different desserts. Connor seemed to like sweet things, as they came to find out, and he took the greatest liking to those types of foods, his favorite one being strawberry shortcake. They had also attempted to play mini-golf in one of Kamski’s studies, but Connor wasn’t very good. He still seemed to enjoy himself though.

Hank and Connor sat by the fireplace now, lit with flame, and Kamski was passed out on the couch, one leg dangling off the edge. Chloe had gone back off to the kitchen to wash dishes and clean other various places around the house before they all retired to bed. 

Hank looked over at Connor, who had his knees pulled close to him, his head resting on them. 

“Did you like swimming?” He asked, and Connor continued looking into the fire. 

“Yes. It was nice.” He said, and Hank frowned. He seemed like he had more to say. 

“I think you’d really like the beach, then. Well, minus the sand in your ass.” He joked and Connor smiled a little bit, but it faded quickly. 

Connor had looked sad before, locked away in his little room, but never like this. It was like being out here made him feel worse, like there was something outside of the room that was worse than the loneliness he felt when he was still in it. Maybe Connor was just so used to being locked away that he didn’t know what to do with so much freedom. 

“How you feeling, Connor?” Hank asked, and Connor still didn’t look at him. 

“I am okay, though I am feeling sleepy.” He said, and Hank smiled. 

“I didn’t know you could feel ‘sleepy.’” Hank said, laughing a bit. Connor nodded tiredly.

“Oh, yes.” He said. “When my batteries get low, it is similar to the experience of tiredness in a human. I quite like it, as it makes me feel more like a person.” 

“You are a person, Connor.” 

“Okay.” He said, sounding distant still, and somewhat awkward. 

“Are you going to go to bed now?” Hank asked. 

Connor didn’t answer for a minute, and Hank almost thought for a second that Connor hadn’t heard him, but then he finally replied. 

“I would like to, though I would rather not go to my own room. Now that I am out, I don’t think that I should like to return.” 

“Oh, that makes sense.” Hank said lamely, unsure how to respond. 

“Could I stay in your bedroom?” Connor asked, finally turning to look at him. “I think that being there with you would make me feel more secure, and safer.” 

“Sure, Connor. Absolutely.”

* * * * *

Back in Hank’s room now, the two of them had set up the bed so that Connor had a space of his own that was comfortable for him, which included his quilt and pillow from his own room, as well as the stuffed dog that he’d had, which was now sitting out in the middle of the bedspread. Connor had also eyed the extra pillows which Hank had discarded in the previous nights to the floor, and so Hank gave him those as well, so he had about five pillows in the end. 

Connor had also brought the snow-globe into the room, which he had placed on the bedside table on his side of the bed, as well as an assortment of his clothes, which he had folded neatly and placed onto the floor next to the bed. Hank had insisted he put them in the drawers, but Connor had declined and said that he didn’t want to be a burden. 

Hank was currently in the bathroom brushing his teeth, door open at Connor’s insistence that he didn’t want to be left alone in the room. 

“I’ll leave it open, just like this, okay? So you can still see me.” Hank had said while pushing the door open almost all the way, and Connor nodded.

Connor flattened out his blanket on the bed for what seemed like the fifteenth time, and Hank watched him in the mirror as he did it, smiling at him as he kept trying, and failing, to completely smooth out all the wrinkles. Once he was satisfied, or had just given up on trying, he sat down at the end of the bed and waited for Hank to be finished, looking around the room and inspecting different items with his eyes. 

Once Hank had finished, he turned the light off in the bathroom and came out, and then lied down on the bed and put his hands behind his head, one knee bent up and the other leg laid out flat. Connor was still sitting at the very edge of the bed, now just staring down at the floor, constantly readjusting the positions of his hands and arms, as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

“I bet you’d love snow.” Hank said, dreamily staring up at the ceiling while he spoke, his eyes growing more and more tired as he spoke. 

“I noticed how you really like things that you can touch with your hands,” Hank said. “So I bet you’d love the way it felt. Like really cold and smooth, and then when it melts in your hands.”

Connor didn’t respond, didn’t even nod or acknowledge Hank’s statement in any way. He just continued to sit there, fiddling with his hands and clothes. 

“I can totally see you out there building a snowman, that’s right up your alley.” Hank said, laughing. “Sand, too, like at the beach. You’d love that.” 

“Would you like to have sex with me?” Connor asked, and Hank sat upright immediately. He stared at Connor, open-mouthed and completely taken aback. 

“Connor, why – why would you ask that?” He said, appalled and confused. Connor turned his head slightly to look back at him. 

“Are you saying that you do not want to?” He asked, and he sounded lost, as though Hank saying no wasn’t what he thought would happen. 

“No, Connor, I don’t want to.” Hank said firmly, but still kind enough that it didn’t sound harsh. “Now tell me why you would even think to ask that.” He said, and Connor just shrugged and then slumped his shoulders. 

Hank moved more towards the end of the bed, next to Connor, and lightly placed his hand on Connor’s shoulder, slowly enough that Connor could pull away if he wanted, but he didn’t, instead leaning into Hank’s touch. 

“Connor, hey, look at me.” Hank said, speaking softly to try and ease Connor’s obvious tension and anxiety at the situation. “It’s okay. Tell me why you said that.” 

“I don’t know.” Connor said emptily, and shook his head slightly as he spoke, still staring down at the floor and picking at the sheets with his fingers. 

“Well, you must know or otherwise you wouldn’t have asked.” Hank said, and Connor stopped what he was doing and stared straight ahead. 

“Because that’s what he does to me.” 

The room felt like Hell then, like every part of this place was cursed and evil, and overflowing with all the pain that could ever be felt. Hank’s heart broke at the words, and he felt sick being here, felt sick at the truth finally coming out now. 

“He – he what? Kamski?” Hank asked, his words unsteady, his breath difficult to catch. He tried to remain calm, though, for Connor’s sake. But Connor still said nothing, and just turned his head further away from Hank. 

“What does he do to you, Connor? Please, talk to me.” Hank begged, almost in tears, but holding them back because he didn’t want Connor to feel more overwhelmed than he probably already did. 

Connor pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, and stared again at a fixed point in front of him. 

“He touches me, makes me do things I don’t like, and then does them to me.” He said, and Hank started feeling choked up. Connor just sat there, unmoving now, staring straight ahead and speaking in a near monotone, but still recognizably desperate voice. 

“Has he done this to you while I’ve been here?” Hank asked slowly, careful with his choice of words so as to not upset Connor. 

“Yes,” He said. “Every night.”

Hank swallowed and let out a deep breath, tears now beginning to fall down his face. He looked up at the ceiling and tried to will them to go back, but he couldn’t. He felt like the world was falling down around him. All he wanted to do was make Connor feel better, in any way that he could. 

“Is it alright if I touch you?” He asked, gesturing with his hand which was hovering over Connor’s back. 

“Yes, that is okay.” Connor said. “But please do not touch my lower back, or my neck.” 

Hank placed his hand gently on Connor’s upper back and rubbed small circles around his skin, trying to soothe him in any way that he could, and Connor seemed to respond positively to the touch. 

They sat like that for a few moments, Hank giving Connor time to recover and gather his thoughts. 

How anyone could hurt someone like Connor, someone so pure, so full of all the good and cheerful things in this world, Hank felt disgusted. Felt disgusted at Kamski, felt disgusted at this house, this bed, these walls. Felt disgusted that he had partaken in those conversations about Connor, earlier in the week. He regretted it so badly now. 

Now that he thought about it, he guessed it should’ve been obvious. The way that Kamski had talked about Connor’s sexual abilities was so clearly spoken from experience, and not from a technical standpoint. Hank felt the feeling in his throat of having to be sick, but it wasn’t that. It was more like his heart was coming out his throat, trying to escape. Connor turned his head slightly to look over at him. 

“I do not want to talk about what he does specifically, because thinking about that causes me discomfort.” He said, and Hank continued rubbing his hand over Connor’s back comfortingly. 

“That’s okay,” Hank said. “We don’t have to talk about that.” 

And then, Hank saw tears begin to fall down Connor’s cheeks, and that was it. 

In his eyes, Connor was human. 

No matter what he had to do, the two of them were leaving this place. He’d kill Kamski if he had to, he didn’t care. Whatever it took to keep Connor safe. To give him a better life. 

“Why did you ask me if I wanted that, though?” Hank asked. Connor reached up to his face and wiped away his tears on the back of his shirt sleeve. 

“Because I thought that’s what all people wanted.” He said, voice shaky with tears and nerves, every emotion spilling out of him in this moment, emotions he’d probably suppressed his entire life. “I have never met anyone other than him, so I didn’t know that other people were different.”

“Oh, Connor…” Hank said, his own tears now falling freely, and he didn’t care to stop them anymore. 

“Can I have a hug?” Connor asked.

“Yes, yes you can absolutely have a hug.” Hank said, and reached his hand around Connor’s shoulder and pulled him into his chest. 

Connor leaned into him, the sound of his soft crying muffled into his chest. Hank held Connor’s head lightly with one hand, his other wrapped around his back, holding him against his body. He placed his chin on the top of Connor’s head, and held him as closely and securely as he could. 

“I’m not gonna let him hurt you again, okay.” Hank said.

“Okay.”


	17. Update (Not a chapter)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just an update on some of my thoughts going forward as we near the end of the story.

So, Ex_Machina has to end eventually, and that end is approaching quickly, likely within the next three to four chapters. At this point, I have veered off the plot and script of the movie, and Chapter 16 was the first one that was entirely unique to this story, and wasn’t in the original. 

That said, I know a lot of you are very invested in this story and these characters, so I was thinking about pursuing a sequel after I finish this one. 

I won’t say now what it will include, or what it will be about, but I can update you all on that at the very end of this story, when I post a full chapter of analysis and explanation for everything that happened, from the smallest details to the biggest plots. 

So, I was wondering if that would be something that you all would be interested in reading? Or, do you think that ending Hank and Connor’s story here is better, and not continuing? At this point, you guys don’t know the ending yet, so you wouldn’t know quite what to expect with a sequel, but I promise it’ll be just as good as this one, I hope. It will also be an entirely new story, as the Ex Machina movie did not have a sequel. 

Also, I want to take a moment to thank everybody who’s been leaving comments and kudos and just reading this in general, you guys are absolutely amazing and I can’t believe the attention this has gotten. I feel bad that I don’t respond to everyone’s comments, but please know that none of them go unnoticed. I wish there was a feature so I could go through and like all of the comments so I could do that. I love hearing your guy’s reactions and feelings and speculation/theories, it’s all so awesome, and you all are amazing. 

Alright, so, let me know what you think in the comments, and another full chapter should be up sometime tonight or tomorrow.


	18. Asylums for the Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from the song "Asylums for the Feeling" by the band Silent Poets (feat. Leila Adu), link below.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8MLKuc4Rxc
> 
> This chapter is quite long, at just around ~10,000 words, so I apologize if that is too long for anyone. I have also gone a bit back onto the script, and the chapter is about half-and-half of entirely new content and then script based dialogue. I hope you all enjoy!

Thursday Night – 11:57 PM 

For a little while longer, Hank and Connor stayed up and continued to talk about everything, Hank consoling the younger boy as he poured his heart out to him about Kamski, this house, these callous hallways filled with terrible, painful memories. It was like Connor just couldn’t get enough of the physical touch that Hank was comforting him with, touch that was safe from the torture of this place, from the terrors he had faced through his time here, and he lied there for a few hours with his head in Hank’s lap, eyes closed as Hank lightly caressed his hair and spoke soothing words to him to help him calm down.

Seeing Connor cry like that was absolutely astounding, and it broke Hank’s heart every time he thought about the sight of that first tear trailing down Connor’s cheek and how human he had looked, how fragile.

Learning of Connor’s ability to cry was a bittersweet moment, as on one hand, it exemplified his human qualities, and made him more realistic, giving him a sense of vulnerable humanity that was unmistakably genuine. But on the other, it reminded Hank that Connor could feel pain, and that his tears were a reaction to those feelings. Hank wished that he could just wipe away all of that pain, and give Connor a reason to smile again.

The two had also spent some time discussing the future, and the things that Connor was looking forward to in escaping from here, like finally getting to see that traffic intersection he had mentioned earlier in the week. Hank laughed when Connor brought it up again, and promised him that once they were back safe in Detroit, they’d definitely see lots of them. 

Connor had also expressed interest in having a pet when he got to Hank’s house, perhaps a fish, he had said, as those interested him and they seemed simple enough to keep up with, yet also required a certain kind of meticulous dedication in caring for them that Connor felt that he would be good at, like a project to focus on. Hank had then told him all about his dog, Sumo, whom he had at home, and Connor seemed very excited at the idea of meeting him. 

Eventually, Connor finally fell asleep, which was more so at Hank’s insistence that he do, as Connor had claimed that he wasn’t tired anymore, and wanted to stay up talking. But Hank knew that Connor really was tired, and had told him that he really needed to get some rest after the day he’d had, and that they would work on getting out of the house once he felt a bit better, and had a clearer head. 

Hank couldn’t sleep though, not right now, and once Connor had drifted off, he redressed himself out of his pajamas, grabbed his keycard, and left the bedroom. He had told Connor that he was going to go and deal with Kamski, and try to come up with a plan. Connor had wanted to come with him, but Hank decided that it would be better if he went alone, because he didn’t know what might happen. 

Maybe it was a stupid decision, going alone and leaving Connor by himself, but he didn’t want Connor to have to see Kamski again. He made sure that Connor would be alright staying in the room, and Connor had said that he would be, and that he would do his best to protect himself if Kamski showed up. Hank didn’t want to leave him, but if they were going to get out of here, he had to do something, and he had assured Connor that he’d be back in no time, and then they wouldn’t have to be apart again. 

Connor asked him to promise that he would come back, no matter what happened, and he had said that he would. Hank may not have been the most skilled, or the most impressive person in the world, but he was loyal. And he didn’t break promises. 

On Sunday morning, the helicopter would be returning to pick Hank up and take him back to Detroit, so far as he knew, and he was banking on that promise of escape. No matter what he had to do, Connor and him were going to be on that flight, and if they couldn’t, then they were going to hike through the damn woods until they found a town or something.

Now, obviously, he couldn’t just walk right out the front door with Connor, so they needed to find a way to get out without Kamski noticing, and with the front-door now locked, he really wasn’t sure how they were going to be able to do that. Connor would probably be returned back to his black and white room again before then, and their window of opportunity would have passed. If they missed that helicopter, they may never get out of here, and Hank couldn’t let that happen. 

Hank stepped out into the hall, cautiously, trying to as quiet as possible, even though he probably didn’t really have a reason to be. If Kamski was still upstairs, passed out on the living room sofa, then he would’ve had no clue what had just transpired downstairs, and thus wouldn’t have been watching the cameras that had likely captured Hank and Connor’s entire conversation. But that footage was out there, somewhere, and Hank needed to figure out a plan before Kamski saw it. 

That glass corridor with the red tiled floor was completely still, in a way that it had never been before. It felt like a tunnel, under the ground, which is technically what it was, but it now felt much less sophisticated than it had, and instead felt more like an abandoned memory. It could perhaps be likened to that of the velvet red insides of a broken music box, one that can no longer play what it once could, and has since been discarded into a pile with all of the other childhood memories that now meant nothing. A graveyard for the children we left behind as we grew up. 

Hank made his way quickly down the hall to the elevator, being as watchful as he could to his surroundings, since, for all he knew, Kamski could be watching him at this very moment. He scanned his keycard once he had stepped through those silver doors, and then ordered the elevator to take him “Up.”

If Kamski wasn’t still on that couch, then Hank was probably fucked, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to do what he needed to do if that were the case. Everything right now was hanging on by the thin threads of the plan he and Connor had come up with, and it was as shaky as it seemed. If one thing went wrong, then everything would fall down around them. But there were no second chances. If they didn’t make it out on that helicopter, they’d be stuck here. 

The elevator came to an even stop and the doors slid open, revealing the white upstairs hallway leading into the living room. Hank stepped out, trying his best to keep the sound of his footsteps as quiet as he could, and slowly made his way down the hall, his eyes shooting around to various corners and crevices to look for cameras, which was probably pointless as most of the cameras were purposefully imperceptible to the naked eye.

He approached the living room then, which was now totally dark, as the last of the flames in the fireplace had finally died out, and the room was only able to be seen around in using the illumination of the moonlight filtering in through the windows. He peered over the edge of the couch from behind, and much to his relief, Kamski was still there, now lying on his stomach, his right arm hung off the couch and onto the floor.

He had to fight every urge in his body not to strangle the man with his bare hands, right then and there, but if he did that, then they might be losing their one chance at getting out of here, as they didn’t know for sure that there even was a way to escape without Kamski’s help in some way. Maybe the house would immediately combust upon his death, who knows? Kamski could’ve programmed any sort of weird and disturbing system which linked him to this place, so that no one else could ever control it. Hank also didn’t know if there was a security system, and he didn’t want to murder Kamski only to find out that this place was under some kind of protection and was being watched from a separate location. He didn’t want to get arrested for this; that wouldn’t help Connor’s situation. 

But oh, how he wanted to just beat the life out that asshole. For Connor. 

He circled slowly around the corner of the couch to the other side, being careful not to accidentally wake the man as he knelt down into the space between the couch and the coffee table. Kamski had his face turned towards him now, and seemed to be completely out cold, his breathing slow and heavy.

Hank took a deep, but quiet breath, and then held it as he reached his arm up and began carefully searching through the pockets of Kamski’s jeans as slowly and tactfully as he could manage. He was worried for a moment that what he was looking for would end up being in a pocket on the front of Kamski’s pants, but thankfully, it wasn’t, and had instead been slid into that of his back-right. Hank grabbed the edge of the flat, metal item and slid it out as carefully as possible and then grasped it in his hand once he had pulled it out entirely. 

Kamski’s keycard. 

He let out the breath that he had been holding in as he held the keycard tightly in his hand and stood back up again. He looked over Kamski’s sleeping body again and still felt that rage burning inside of his entire body. He couldn’t wait to ruin this asshole’s night. 

And then he looked up at the space behind the couch, across from him, and his entire body fell white with fear, like needles all over his skin, or like he had just fallen from a very high distance. 

Chloe was standing there, completely still, and staring at him, her head tilted slightly to the side as she watched the scene unfold in front of her.

Hank didn’t do anything for a moment, and just waited there, glued to the spot, to see what she would do, but she didn’t do anything. He shook his head at her quietly but frantically, to communicate to her to stop whatever she might be about to do. If she woke Kamski, this would all be over. 

But still, she did nothing, and just stood there, still as a mannequin, eyeing him curiously from about five-feet away. Hank shuffled out from the space between the couch and coffee table, then, and slowly rounded the couch to approach her, his hands held on-guard at his sides, prepared to protect himself if something went down.

He walked over to stand in front of her, and she just continued doing nothing. He waited for another moment, seeing her eyes locked to him, unwavering, and then, as a test, he took a few steps backwards, and with each step, she followed him. He stopped and looked at her for a moment, wondering what her angle was. And then he did it again, and still, she followed. He furrowed his brow at her, and she nodded her head at him and then pointed at the keycard in his hand, then at the elevator, and then placed her pointer-finger over her closed mouth. Oh, he thought, she wants to come with me. 

He nodded back at her and they both looked back at Kamski for a moment before heading off down the hallway. Chloe had grabbed Hank’s hand as they walked down, and was leading him back to the elevator, lightly tugging him alongside her, and leading him all the way down to Kamski’s bedroom, using his keycard to bypass the security and gain access to the room. 

* * * * *

When they arrived, they rushed out of the elevator, went through Kamski’s bedroom with all of the mirrors, and then headed into the office with the computer monitors and wall of yellow post-it notes.

The bedroom was lit by a few of those lanterns Kamski loved so much, but the lights in the office were all off, and it was only being lit ever so slightly by the light coming in through the archway from the bedroom. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough for Hank to get where he needed to. 

He walked over to the desk, and looked down at the three monitors, which were all currently powered off, and then pulled the black computer chair out and sat down in front of the screens. Chloe stood silently as usual and watched him curiously from beside the desk, hands held politely in front of her, as he inserted Kamski’s keycard into its access slot. As soon as he did so, the three displays immediately blinked on, throwing more light into the otherwise darkened office. 

Each of the three monitors was split into multiple windows, and most of them displayed various CCTV live-feeds from around the house, such as the living room, where Kamski could still be seen sleeping on the couch, or to Hank’s bedroom, where Connor was also still asleep. Seeing Connor made Hank’s heart beat faster as he had almost forgotten for a moment why he was really there. It was the reminder he needed. They were getting out of this horror house. 

On the central screen, it showed the operating system default, with the wallpaper background being a photograph of a waterfall, one that Kamski had likely taken himself out in the valleys of his estate. On the left-hand side of the screen were about two-dozen icons of varying purposes, and Hank scanned over them quickly but saw nothing that seemed useful or out-of-the-ordinary. But then, on the right-side of the screen, he noticed, there was a single suspiciously unlabeled manila folder icon.

He double-clicked on the folder and it opened into multiple gray windows with hundreds of lines of white code in each one. He pulled his hand away from the mouse and let out a long sigh.

“Fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing.” He whispered quietly to himself, putting his head in his hands for a moment, and then he felt a hand placed delicately on his shoulder, and he looked over to see that Chloe had moved right next to him. She nodded at the screen, and motioned for him to scoot aside and give her some room, and he did so, moving his chair so that she could get to the keyboard. 

She scanned over everything for a few seconds, her eyes darting all over the screen, her hand clicking on the different windows and checking all of them. And then she reached up to the keyboard and starting adding and removing lines of code faster than Hank had ever seen anybody do so. It was like she was on auto-pilot, her eyes never leaving the screen. Hank wondered if Kamski knew that Chloe could do this, or if he had just assumed that she was as incompetent as he treated her. 

On the other monitor, which showed the CCTV footage, Hank now noticed that the living room couch was empty, and he felt his heart drop. Kamski was gone. Whatever window of time they had was closing as quickly as it had opened. 

“Fuck, he’s coming.” He said, and for the first time, Chloe acknowledged what had been said to her, and then she pointed to a live-stream of the kitchen, where Kamski was currently standing, looking in the fridge. Okay, he thought, so maybe Kamski would take his time lollygagging to the elevator and wouldn’t notice that his card was gone before Hank could return it, somehow. 

Chloe continued typing and kept opening and closing windows that hadn’t even been in the folder, speeding through them and editing them as she went. The computer then made a long buzzing sound, and dinged, like the sound of a computer powering-up. And then she stopped, stood up from the chair, and moved to the side. 

Hank looked at her for a moment, and she nodded at him. He returned the gesture, and then she turned and walked into Kamski’s bedroom. Hank watched her go for a moment, amazed at what he had just witnessed, and then sat back down in the chair and started typing on the computer himself, taking care of what he needed to. 

He was about to stand up, a few minutes later when he was finished with what he needed to do, but then he hesitated, his breath hitched in his throat and his hand hovering over the mouse.

On the left-hand side of the screen, amongst the icons that he had just barely scanned over a few minutes prior, there was another folder. A folder labeled “DEUS_EX_MACHINA.” 

He bit his bottom lip for a moment, and just eyed the icon for a moment, unsure if he should click on it. 

And then he did. 

Upon being opened, the folder expanded into a gray window, which contained a long list of subfolders, each one named after a person. JASMINE, KATYA, JADE, LILY, AMBER, CHLOE, and CONNOR.

On the CCTV monitors, Kamski was still lingering around in the kitchen, looking out the window, digging through the cabinets, et cetera, and Hank checked to make sure that the man wasn’t coming yet before double-clicking on the folder labelled LILY.

The folder expanded into another window, stacked with thumbnail images of a young blonde girl sitting at a metal table in the middle of a gray room. Connor’s bedroom. Hank clicked on one of the images at random.

A CCTV film-clip started to play, and it showed who Hank assumed was Lily - an android of similar design to Chloe - sitting with her head bowed, gently rocking in a backwards and forwards motion. In the corner of the room, Kamski was leaning up against the wall, watching her with his arms crossed over his chest.

Hank exited out of the window, and then clicked on the KATYA folder, which again, expanded into another window of thumbnails, this time of a dark-skinned girl with brown hair. He double-clicked another link at random.

A new film clip began to play, this time of a girl lying limp and lifeless on the floor of that same gray room. Kamski walked over to her and pushed her body, but she did not wake. He grabbed her then and sat her up, rather roughly, and then locked his elbows under her arms and began dragging her towards the metal induction plate on the wall which Connor had been using to trigger the outages. He held her hand up to the plate, trying to force her to charge, but nothing happened. He dropped her to the floor then, and she fell down and folded in on herself. 

Hank exited that window as well, and then selected the JADE folder, which showed a statuesque East Asian woman with long black hair, almost down to her waist. He clicked one of the thumbnails.

Another film-clip played. Kamski was standing in the glass box inside the observation room – watching the girl. They seemed to be talking, but there was no audio, so Hank couldn’t hear what they were saying. They seemed to be having some kind of argument, which then began to escalate quickly, as Jade started shouting. Kamski just stayed entirely still, unfazed by her fit of anger. Then, she approached the glass and started to hit her hands against it, but it didn’t break no matter how hard she tried. 

One of Jade’s arms broke under the force of the blows, her hand flailing limply now where the carbon fibre had splintered at the wrist. Then the other broke as well. Throughout, Kamski simply watched impassively.

Hank closed the window then and went back to the folder of names. He was about to close out of that too, but then he hesitated on the CONNOR folder. He moved his hand over the mouse to click on it, but stopped, and realized that he didn’t want to know. Whatever was in there, he knew that he’d probably rather go on without having seen it. And out of respect for Connor, he closed the window, and let whatever was in that folder fade from the screen. He’d already seen enough, and he didn’t think he could handle whatever vile and depraved things Kamski had filmed of Connor.

He remained there for a moment, absorbing what he’d just watched, but he had no words. Connor and Chloe weren’t the first, and who knows how many others there had been before them. And each time, Kamski put them back in that same gray bedroom. 

Hank held his hands in fists, squeezing his nails into his palms, his eyes closed, just sitting and thinking for a moment, or maybe clearing his mind and re-finding the will to fight. He opened his eyes again and then reached over and pulled Kamski’s keycard out of the slot, and in doing so, all of the monitors powered off again.

He stood up from the desk and then pushed that chair back in, and then he looked behind the screens at the mess of post-it notes. 

Circling around the table, he approached the wall and began reading the notes, and he found that they were all notes of varying length, some with drawings and diagrams of different scientific formulas, and some with words or equations. All of them were about Connor. 

“FIX LEFT EYE MOVEMENTS” one said, scribbled in red ink, alongside a blue-print of what seemed to be the mechanics of Connor’s eyes inside his head. 

“EDIT SKIN TEXTURE ON RIGHT ARM” said another.

“DESTROYED ROOM IN ANGER - RESTRICT PRIVILEGES”

“TRIED TO REMOVE CAMERA FROM WALL – MARCH 15”

And there were hundreds, all about random things that Connor had done, or said, or about fixes and alterations that Kamski thought he needed to make. The dates went back as far as September of the previous year, so it seemed that that may have been when Connor was created. 

Hank stared up at the wall, overwhelmed by the extreme level of detail that had gone into this. It was like looking at the man behind the mask. Seeing all of the secrets behind a magic trick. It really put into perspective that Connor was still a hand-made machine, built by a mortal man, and full of flaws in his code. 

Hank took a final look, taking a few steps backwards, and still just absolutely blown away at seeing the secrets behind everything. He kind of wanted to rip them all down, just to be an asshole, but he knew that for the plan to work, he couldn’t. 

He turned, then, and exited the office back into Kamski’s bedroom, keycard in hand, and quickly sped back over towards the elevator, not quite running, but definitely moving faster than just a casual walking pace. 

Hank reached the silver doors, and held up Kamski’s keycard to the plate, but then suddenly remembered that Chloe had been with him, and that she hadn’t followed him out of the room. He lowered his arm from the plate, and then turned around to see her, still in Kamski’s bedroom, standing at the end of the bed, staring into the mirrors. 

He walked back into the room, and said, “Chloe?” softly, and she turned to look at him, her eyes filled with sadness, and then she looked back at the mirrors.

He turned and scanned around the room, looking at those mirrors that she was so transfixed by, and then he slowly approached them and put his hand up to the glass of the mirror and rapped on it with his knuckles, the sound echoing emptily behind it, and all along the wall. 

It was hollow.

Hank hesitated for a moment, and then reached his hands up to the edge of one mirror, slipped them into the space between, and pulled at it with his fingers. 

At first, nothing happened, but then with a slight suctioning popping sound, it opened up, like a door. It was a cabinet. And inside, there was the body of a girl, tied up inside by her wrists and waist, like a doll in a box. 

The body of the girl was totally limp, and her eyes were wide-open, dead and staring at nothing. Parts of her robotic body were exposed at various places, like her hands and left thigh. Her hair was a mess, and she was completely naked. 

He stepped away, hand reaching up to his mouth, completely in shock, and feeling ill. He opened the next mirror, and inside was a slim dark-skinned girl whose torso and head were covered in skin, but the rest of her body was still in her robotic form. Also tied up and naked.

He then quickly went down the line, opening box after box to reveal the women’s lifeless, robotic bodies strapped inside, each one destroyed in different ways. 

It was sickening to look at, and even though they weren’t human, it was still deeply disturbing, and felt like he was looking at taxidermized bodies of dead women, lifeless and forever trapped here. 

Then, in the last box of the line, Hank opened it up to see the only boy in the group of women. And it was Connor. Or another version of him, at least. 

He was tied up, just like the others, and his face has been visibly abused, like he’d been hit multiple times. He was missing his left forearm, and some of the skin was ripped off of his legs. 

Hank broke down at the sight, and fell to his knees in front of the box, his head in his hands, not wanting to look up at the body. Tears fell out, and he didn’t know why. He couldn’t control what he felt, and all he wanted to do was lash out, or explode, or disappear. Anything to get him away from here. Anything to wipe these memories from his mind. If this happened to his Connor, he’d never be able to live with himself. And he felt sick at the thought that maybe his Connor had been in here at some point, locked away, terrified and abused. The amount of pain and despicable memories that this room held made his skin weigh heavy with unease. 

Kamski was keeping them here to have sex with them, even though he had beaten their bodies into total destruction. They could never say no, and he could do whatever he wanted to them. He made them and then played with their lives, decided who was good enough to live, and who was defective.

Acted as their God.

Hank then felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked over slightly to see that Chloe had knelt beside him. She still could not speak, but her eyes said everything. For the first time, Hank saw light in her. Not light as in happiness, but light as in humanity. She was scared, and traumatized. But despite that, she had wanted to comfort him. 

They shared a quiet moment, and then, she reached her arms around him and hugged him, leaning her head onto his shoulder. And he felt like he needed to save her too. 

These were like her sisters, and brother, and the current Connor, still upstairs and asleep, was too. And now she had to look at their lifeless bodies and know that this was her future. One day, she’d be shoved into one of these boxes too, just strapped in and waiting until Kamski wanted to use her. 

All three of them were getting out of here, and never looking back. 

* * * * *

When Hank exited the elevator, back onto the main floor, Kamski was standing there in the hall, looking up at a painting and regarding it thoughtfully, obviously still completely wasted. He was holding another beer in one hand, and then a half-eaten apple in the other. When he heard the elevator slide open, he turned to look at Hank. 

“Hey, man! What’s up?” He asked, and smiled widely at him.

Hank was alone, as Chloe had gotten off at the red-tiled floor hallway, at Hank’s suggestion, because he didn’t think that staying in the elevator together was a good idea. He pulled his face into the most genuine smile he could, and walked out towards Kamski. 

“Nothing, just taking a little walk. I couldn’t really sleep very well.” Hank said, adding a slight laugh at the end of his sentence, but it sounded tense. Kamski stared over at him, his head tilted and his eyes blank. Hank felt like he was being looked through, but then Kamski broke eye-contact and Hank realized that the other man was too wasted to know what was really going on, too wasted to be suspicious.

“That’s smart, man.” Kamski said, raising his beer towards Hank and nodding his head. “I do that sometimes too.” 

Kamski turned his whole body then, and began to make his way down the hall, his movements unsteady, but not so much so that he couldn’t walk. Hank stood still, just outside the elevator, and waited for him to approach. 

“But, I really do need to go to bed now.” Kamski said, and blinked his eyes a few times, obviously tired. “I am exhausted as fuck, so, goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“Oh, yeah, actually. I’m gonna go with you, and uh, head back to my room.” Hank said, and then stepped back into the elevator, waiting for Kamski to get down the hall. 

“Are you?” Kamski asked. “That’s cool…that is…great.” He said, nodding and looking around at nothing. 

When Kamski finally got inside, he stood there for a moment, and then reached into his back pocket, looking for his keycard. But it was gone. 

“The fuck?” He whispered to himself, and then started searching his other ones frantically. 

Hank eyed him hesitantly from the corner of his eye, and then slyly pulled Kamski’s keycard out of his own pocket and dropped it onto the elevator floor. It landed with a metallic clang, just heavy enough to not bounce much.

“Oh, hey,” Hank said, trying to sound surprised. “I think you dropped it.” He said, and pointed down at the card on the floor. Kamski looked down at it and smiled. 

“Wow, I did. Thanks man.” He said, and then leaned down to pick it up. He smiled at Hank again and Hank nodded his head back at him, and then Kamski scanned the card, and the elevator began to descend.

* * * * *

Friday Morning – 8:04 AM 

Connor had woken now, just a few minutes prior, and was sitting crisscrossed on the bed, his stuffed dog in his lap, with Hank still wrapped in the covers and asleep beside him. Connor was looking around the room, taking in his surroundings with curiosity. He rubbed his eyes sleepily, and then felt the bed move faintly beside him. 

Hank slowly opened his eyes, reaching up to rub them with the palms of his hands. He turned and smiled slightly when he saw Connor sitting there. 

“Good morning.” Hank said. “Did you sleep okay?” 

Connor nodded, eyes soft like a puppy, and Hank noticed for the first time that they were a deep brown, with hints of orange, warm and beautiful like dark tiger’s eye. 

“I did. Yes.” Connor responded quietly. “Thank you for asking.” 

Hank smiled at him, and Connor 

“How long have you been up, Connor?” Hank asked, and he sat up and placed his hand on Connor’s knee ever so slightly. Connor thought for a moment, looking down at Hank’s hand and then reaching to his knee with his own hand and touching Hank’s fingers lightly. 

“Not long.” He said, shrugging, and Hank frowned.

“Connor, you should’ve just woken me up.” He said, his voice a bit disappointed. He didn’t want Connor to have to be by himself, so he would’ve rather woken up to be with him so that be didn’t have to sit alone. 

Connor distractedly ran his hands over Hank’s fingers, feeling his skin. He lifted Hank’s hand up and turned it over, regarding the man’s palm and the creases laid into it. 

“It’s okay,” He said. “I did not want to bother you.” 

Hank nodded, still not entirely happy that Connor was afraid to wake him. He didn’t want Connor to feel worried about coming to him with problems, and he would drop anything in an instant if Connor needed help. He watched the boy for a moment as he turned Hank’s hand over and around, folding and studying it, looking absolutely fascinated. He compared it to his own hand, and Hank’s was a bit bigger, but not by much. Connor’s hands were thinner, and paler.

Connor had very little body hair, Hank suddenly noticed, and was only covered in a sort of light dusting of pale hair that was mostly imperceptible, but still there. 

“How are you feeling?” Hank asked, and Connor still didn’t look at him. He seemed to be using Hank’s hand as a way to distract himself. 

“Anxious.” He admitted. “But I think the feeling will subside once we are gone.” 

Hank reached over with his other hand and stroked Connor’s head and hair, and then lightly ran his fingers over the left side of his face and then pulled it away.

“I’m nervous, too.” Hank said, and Connor peered up at him, his bottom lip pulled into his mouth, biting on it nervously. “But hey, you’ve got me. We’ll get through it, okay?” 

“Please don’t leave me here.” Connor said, and Hank felt his heart surge with heat. 

“Connor, I would never – ” He said, his voice sounding a bit breathless as he tried to say what he needed to, but Connor cut him off.

“I’m afraid that you will be unable to keep your promise.” He said. “I don’t want to be left behind.” 

All this boy had ever known was disappointment, and it just ate Hank up inside to know that Connor had probably never known true happiness in his entire life. He pulled his hand out of Connor’s, and Connor placed his own hands into his lap, nervously searching for something else to fidget with. Hank scooted closer and then reached around Connor’s back and pulled him into his chest again, and Connor leaned into the touch. Hank rocked ever so slightly, and Connor closed his eyes. 

“I would never leave you here, Connor, okay?” He said, and then pressed a kiss onto the top of Connor’s head. “We’re getting out of here, alright?” Connor nodded into his chest. 

“When the helicopter comes back on Sunday, we’re both gonna be on it. I promise.” Hank said. He could feel the vibrations of Connor’s breathing against him, and the soft rumble of it was comforting. Connor’s body was surprisingly warm, and his skin was soft, and smooth. 

“But how?” Connor asked. Hank stroked the back of Connor’s head comfortingly. 

“Last night, I took Kamski’s keycard from his pocket, and then I snuck into his room and got a look at his computers to see if I could figure anything out. So we’re not flying blind here.” He said, and Connor nodded again, to show that he understood. 

“Right now, I’m gonna go and get Kamski blind drunk, and then offer to take him to his room to lie down. Then, when we’re down there, I’m gonna take his keycard again, go back to his computer, and reprogram all the security protocols in this place. Then, when he wakes up in his room, he’ll be locked inside, and we’ll have walked out of here unscathed. And I only need you to do one thing for me.” 

Connor pulled away from Hank’s chest, and Hank moved his hands from around Connor’s back and then onto his upper arms, near his shoulders. 

“What?” Connor asked, looking deeply into Hank’s eyes, obviously ready and willing to do anything for him.

“Trigger a power failure at ten o’clock this morning.” 

* * * * *

Friday Morning – 9:32 AM

In the kitchen, sunlight poured through the windows and reflected glimmers on the countertops, reflecting and sending streams of light up at the ceiling. This was only the second day of full sun they’d had, and the warmth it brought in through the windows brightened the room up in a way that rivaled the tense darkness of the mood that filled the house. Tension that could be cut up with a knife. 

Hank walked in through the dining room door, and saw that Kamski was already in there, standing in the kitchen, near the window and leaning up against the counter, and was drinking another one of those protein-shakes from a glass. The whole room smelled like orange-scented cleaner, as well as the distinct smell of coffee, which Hank noticed was brewing off the side. Kamski smiled widely when he saw Hank approach.

“Dude.” Kamski said.

“Hey.” Hank replied, and walked over to the coffee pot, grabbing a mug and pouring himself some. He held the cup in his hands and walked over to Kamski to stand next to him. 

“You know what day it is?” Kamski asked, taking a sip of his drink through the straw placed into the glass. Hank furrowed his brow, confused, and thought for a moment. He shook his head.

“No.” Hank said, then shrugged.

“It’s your second-to-last.” Kamski explained. “The helicopter is coming Sunday morning, eight AM.” Hank paused for a moment, and took a sip of his coffee. 

“Has it really been almost a whole week?” Hank asked, trying to sound like he was surprised and even a bit disappointed. Kamski smiled. 

“Well, time does fly when you’re having this good of a time.” Kamski said, a somewhat teasing lilt in his voice. “But what a thing you and I have shared. Something to tell the grandchildren, right?” Hank smiled tightly, trying to keep up his casual front. 

“After they’ve signed their NDAs.” Hank added jokingly, and Kamski laughed. 

“Signed their NDAs! Dude, you always crack me up.” He said, laughing, but it felt empty, like he hadn’t actually thought it was funny. “And uh, not to be too sappy, but…I will miss having you around, y’know? It gets kinda lonely up here, and I had a good time. For real.” 

Kamski looked away for a moment, tapping absentmindedly at the glass of his drink. Or maybe it wasn’t. Because he also seemed tense, the small movements of his fingers filled with anger, and intent. Like he was waiting for something. Like he was faking it.

Hank noticed, but opted to ignore it for now, because there wasn’t anything he could do. He kept it in the back of his mind though, and kept watching Kamski’s tiny mannerisms and pattern of speech, his tense aura that begged anxiety and rage.

“I appreciate that.” Hank said, trying to keep the mood light. “And - let me say: thank you for bringing me here. It’s really been something.” 

He smiled at Kamski, and but the younger man still didn’t look at him. He seemed to be grinding his teeth, and was holding his cup extremely tight, focusing on everything and nothing in front of him. He was obviously deep in thought about something, and quite frankly, looked pissed. 

“Yes, it has.” Kamski said, his words vague and distant, like this conversation wasn’t holding his interest. He was somewhere else. 

“You know what?” Hank said, walking away from Kamski and then over to the fridge and opening it, the chilled air brushing over his body. He scanned the shelves for a moment, and then pulled out two beers. “I think this calls for a drink.” 

He shut the door of the fridge, and then walked back over to Kamski, who was still leaning against the counter, breathing deeply through his nose and running his tongue over his teeth. His brow was a bit furrowed, and his eyes were blank. Hank held out his hand with the beer, but Kamski didn’t take it. 

“Oh, uh...no thanks,” He said, shaking his head and brushing Hank off with his hand. “I’m good. You go ahead.” Hank swallowed and tried to hold his composure. 

Kamski looked up at him then, and the two of them stared at one another for a beat, Kamski almost bordering on seeming to stare him down, trying to intimidate him, as if pressuring him to come clean. 

“You don’t want a beer?” Hank asked, trying to sound as casual as he could, but not being able help the slight unsureness that seeped through into his words. 

Kamski shrugged, eyes still locked tight onto Hank’s. His eyes were deliberately wide, and held open at a fixed diameter that took everything he was thinking and lied it out on the table. 

He knew.

“No.” Kamski said firmly. Hank swallowed.

“...Maybe wine or something, then.” Hank suggested.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed – ” Kamski said. “That I’ve been somewhat overdoing it recently. When I woke up this morning, I told myself: time to hit the old detox.” Hank’s hand remained extended, and he smiled again, much more tightly. 

“Are you kidding?” Hank said jokingly. “You, of all people, don’t want a drink?” Kamski brushed him off again, and took a drink from his glass. 

“Hey - you want to get wasted, knock yourself out. Literally.” His words were casual, but his tone was fueled by an underlying bitterness and annoyance that was undeniable. Like someone telling a joke in a monotone voice. 

“But I’m cleansing right now.” He said, and gestured towards Hank with the hand that was holding the glass. ”Think I’ve had a bit too much this week.” A beat passes between them. 

Hank put down Kamski’s beer, and then raised his own. 

“Well, cheers, anyway.” He said. Kamski raised his glass up to meet Hank’s beer, and clinked them together.

“Cheers.” He said.

Hank took a single sip, and Kamski just watched him. 

“So, anyway.” Kamski said, looking away from Hank and then out the window. “Surely this is when you tell me whether Connor passed or not.”

Hank didn’t respond immediately, instead taking a moment to collect himself and try to think of how to get his plan back on track. 

“Right.” Hank said, and then another beat passed in silence. Kamski looked back at him again then, and when Hank didn’t expand on his answer, Kamski titled his head, waiting.

“So, you going to keep me in suspense?” He asked. Hank swallowed, his throat felt tight, and his hands felt shaky, so he gripped the bottle more tightly in his hands as he spoke.

“His A.I. is beyond a doubt.” He said, and Kamski smiled vaguely.

“Is it?” He asked, somewhat dramatically. “So he passed?” Hank nodded.

“Yes.” Hank said. 

“Wow. That’s fantastic.” Another long pause of silence. Hank’s eyes darted all around the room, but he didn’t move, afraid that any sudden movements would set Kamski off. 

“Although I’ve got to admit,” Kamski said, breaking the silence. “I’m surprised. I mean, did we ever get past that chess problem you brought up a few days ago? As in, how do you tell if a machine is expressing a real emotion, or just a simulated one?” He spoke questioningly, like he actually cared to hear the answer, but it was obvious that he didn’t. He was just leading Hank onto something, but what it was, Hank didn’t know, and he had no choice but to remain civil in the conversation.

Hank didn’t respond, and tried to think of what to say. He licked his lips, which were feeling dry, and then tried to steady his breathing. He felt like his skin was trying to jump off his body, and his bones were as jittery as ever. He swallowed again, and Kamski continued. 

“Does Connor actually like you? Or not.” Hank had a cold realization dawn on him then, Kamski was playing with him. Kamski laughed and pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“Though, huh, now that I stop to think, there could be a third option.” He said, and looked up at Hank arrogantly, a knowing look smeared all over his face.

“Not whether he does or doesn’t have the capacity to like you,” He paused, and Hank said nothing still, and held his breath waiting for the shoe to drop. And then it did.

“But whether he’s just pretending to like you.” 

The room surged with energy at his words, and Hank felt more real now than he had all week, like a mirage fading in the desert, or a cardboard cutout of a house suddenly falling over, revealing that it was fake the whole time, where from a distance, it had appeared real. 

“Pretending.” Hank repeated, for clarification.

“Yeah.” Kamski said, and another beat of silence washed over them, the truth setting in. 

“Why would he do that?” Hank asked, somewhat defensively.

“I don’t know.” Kamski said tauntingly, but it was obvious that he did know. Kamski gazed at Hank evenly. He tapped the glass of his drink again with his fingers, and the sound felt like it was a thousand times louder than it really was, and it filled the silence of the room like booming. The light tapping made Hank’s skin crawl, and he wanted to grab the glass and throw it on the ground to make it stop. It was clawing at his ears and all he wanted to do was implode. 

“Perhaps – ” Kamski said. “If he saw you as a means of escape.” 

And now Hank knew: Kamski knew everything. He swallowed thickly, but it felt like his throat was closed up. He breathed out through his nose, worried that if he opened his mouth, he might throw up from the nerves. He gritted his teeth and tried to will his body to calm down. He couldn’t self-destruct now. Not like this. 

“How’s that beer tasting?” Kamski asked, and Hank put it down on the counter next to him, and then let his hands fall to his sides, balling them into fists as they hung beside him. 

“Buddy,” Kamski said, somewhat sympathetically. He put down his own glass on an opposing counter and then moved closer to Hank, tapping his fingers nonchalantly along the wood of the counter. “Your head has been so fucked with.” He said. Hank frowned angrily. 

“I don’t think it’s me whose head is fucked.” He said, and Kamski scoffed dramatically. He crossed his arms and shook his head at Hank.

“I’m not sure, dude.” He said. “When I woke up this morning, I saw a tape of you with Connor in your bedroom, and you were looking pretty cozy to me.” 

“You’re a bastard.” Hank said, and Kamski nodded in agreement. 

“That’s fair. I can understand why you’d think that.” He stepped over to Hank, and rested a hand on his shoulder. 

“But, strange as it may seem,” He said, talking to Hank as if he were a child. “I’m actually the one who’s on your side.” He dropped his hand from Hank and then began heading towards the door out of the kitchen.

“Come on,” He said. “I’m gonna let you in on a little secret.”

* * * * *

Friday Morning - 9:53 AM

Back down in Kamski’s office, Hank and Kamski stood in front of the three computers. On the middle monitor, a clip of film was playing, and it showed the scene that Hank witnessed two nights before, of Connor sitting on the floor of Kamski’s bedroom, where Kamski had come in, and the exchange that had occurred between them. However, unlike the first time where the sound was muted, this time the audio could be heard, and it played out into the room.

In the footage, Kamski was standing above Connor, obviously drunk, and Connor was sat down on the floor, near the bed, with his drawings around him. Kamski knelt down next to him, placing his hand on his shoulder and gripping the place in-between his shoulder and neck.

“You think he’s watching us right now, don’t you?” Kamski asked, words slightly slurred, but not much. 

“The cameras are on.” Connor stated, his voice very plain, as though he were trying not to show any emotion at all, trying not to give Kamski the reaction that he wanted. He didn’t look at the other man, and just held his drawing pad to his chest, obscuring the picture from Kamski’s view and staring off to the side, at nothing. 

“Yeah, that’s true.” Kamski said, tracing his hand down and touching the skin at the small of Connor’s back. Connor was obviously uncomfortable at this touch, but seemed too frozen to pull away. “But he doesn’t get an audio feed.”

Kamski reached over then and tugged at the pad in Connor’s arms, pulling it roughly out of his hands once Connor loosened his grip. Kamski ripped the paper at the perforation and discarded the rest of the pad to the side. He held it the drawing to the light, examining it. It was the photo of Hank. 

“So, right now, all he can see is two people just having a little chat.” Kamski said, and studied the picture for a moment. He grinned. 

“This is cute.” He commented, a mocking tone in his voice. He held the picture and studied it from different angles, seemingly pretending to be interested in it, though it was obvious that he didn’t actually care at all. 

“Is it strange to have made something that hates you?” Connor asked, his voice still flat, but definitely filled with an underlying biting bitterness. He finally turned his head to look to look up at Kamski. 

They stared at one another for a moment, saying nothing, but the anger on Kamski’s face was apparent. Then, rather abruptly and dramatically, Kamski ripped the picture in half, not breaking eye-contact with Connor, and let the two pieces fall to the floor. As Connor watched them drift slowly downwards, Kamski turned and exited the room. 

Kamski hit pause, and then glanced over at Hank who was beside him, his mouth slightly agape with shock. 

“You were right about the hot magician’s assistant.” Kamski said, sounding amused. Hank looked at him, brow furrowed. 

“What are you talking about?” He asked, confused. 

“Misdirection.” Kamski explained, looking back at the footage on the screen. “I rip up his picture, which he can then present to you as an illustration of my cruelty towards him. To make you feel bad for him. To make me seem like the bad guy.” He gestured to himself. 

Hank stood there, dumbfounded, completely unsure how to process any of this. He didn’t know what to say. No amount of words in the world could ever explain what he was feeling. He’d never been so manipulated before. And for what?

“Oh, and the power cuts?” Kamski said, and Hank looked over at him. “They were all planned. I was watching the entire time from hidden cameras.” He said, and Hank’s heart dropped. “And I purposely made it so that Connor would only give you small amounts of information, but then always leave you wanting more.” 

Kamski clicked on another window on the monitor, and a clip of Hank and Connor from days prior showed up, the clip of them during the power-outage where Connor had told Hank not to trust Kamski.

“This was pretty interesting, the way he did it. Really made me out to be a huge fucking dick, didn’t he?” Kamski said, laughing, seeming almost impressed by all of it. “He sold it really well, and I bet you just ate that shit up, didn’t you?” 

Hank looked around sheepishly, still speechless and not understanding why Kamski had done all of this. Why he had built this whole fantastical little world just to trick Hank and make him feel like a fool.

“Oh, and I loved this little piece from this morning.” Kamski said, and then changed the screen again to footage of Hank and Connor sitting on Hank’s bed, the camera angle coming from inside the TV.

“I’m getting you out of here.” Hank said, as he sat on the bed. Connor looked up at him.

“How?” He asked, and Hank leaned in. 

“Last night, I took Kamski’s keycard from his pocket,” Hank said, voice lowered. “And then I snuck into his room and got a look at his computers to see if I could figure anything out, so we’re not flying blind here.”

“Right now, I’m gonna go and get Kamski blind drunk, and then offer to take him to his room to lie down. Then, when we’re down there, I’m gonna take his keycard again, go back to his computer, and reprogram all the security protocols in this place. Then, when he wakes up in his room, he’ll be locked inside, and we’ll have walked out of here unscathed.”

“Turn it off.” Hank said, but Kamski ignored him.

“And I only need you to do one thing. Trigger a power failure at ten o’clock this morning.” 

“Turn it off.” Hank repeated through gritted teeth, his voice full of a deep sort of darkness underneath, almost anger. 

“Okay, okay.” Kamski said, and shrugged. The recording stopped playing. Hank closed his eyes and took a deep breath, lifting his chin up slightly and trying to remain calm. 

“You feel stupid.” Kamski said, as though that were exactly how he planned for Hank to feel. “But you shouldn’t. Proving an A.I. is exactly as problematic as you said it was.” 

Hank opened his eyes then, and crossed his arms over his chest. The two men stared at one another for a moment, neither saying anything as they just let the information hang in the air, waiting for it to absorb.

“What was the real test?” Hank asked. Kamski grinned again. 

“You.”

Everything had led up to this moment. And Hank could feel everything in the house falling down around him. He blanched at the realization that this was all for him. He wanted to cry. 

“Connor was like a mouse stuck in a trap. And I gave him one way out.” Kamski explained, holding up a loose ‘1’ with his finger. “To escape, he would have to use imagination, sexuality, self-awareness, and manipulation - and he did. If that isn’t A.I., then what the fuck is?” 

“The real test,” Kamski continued. “Was to see if I could get you to feel empathy for a machine.” He explained, leaning on the desk behind him, arms crossed and looking over at Hank, who was refusing to meet his eyes. 

“Making him flirt with you in the beginning was the first part of the test.” He said, and Hank cringed at the thought of it. 

“You were lonely, and he was practically throwing himself at your feet. You don’t have to be gay to see that opportunity.” He said, speaking genuinely again. “And everybody’s curious, so when you asked me if he could have sex, that wasn’t a bad question. Most people probably would’ve considered it at some point.” He shrugged.

“But what I needed from you was for you to look past the hot assistant façade, and see him for who he really was on the inside. And feel badly enough for him to want to help him escape. And it worked. He tricked you.” Kamski said, and Hank still just stared at the ground, studying the pattern of the tiled floor. 

“So, I was only here to be someone that he could use to escape.” Hank said, pursing his lips and nodding his head bitterly. “Fucking fantastic.” 

“Yes.” Kamski said plainly. 

“And you didn’t pick me because I was good at coding.” Hank stated, and Kamski hesitated before answering, giving him a look full of sympathy. 

“Don’t get me wrong. You’re okay.” Kamski said, speaking quickly and trying to explain. “Even pretty good, maybe, but – ” He trailed off, obviously not knowing how else to continue that sentence.

“You chose me based on my internet history.” Hank said, and Kamski nodded.

“I did.” Kamski said, his hand still held reassuringly on Hank’s shoulder. “And you know what that showed me?” He asked, and Hank shrugged, not meeting his eyes. 

“They showed me a good man.” Kamski said, genuinely, and Hank sighed. 

“With no family.” Hank said depressingly, and looked back over to the monitors, then up at the wall of post-it notes. Everything in this house had been deliberately set-up for him. Nothing was real. 

“A moral compass.” Kamski added, seemingly trying to make Hank feel better by complementing him, by making him feel like despite all of this, at least it proved that he was a good person. Hank shook his head and looked down again, staring at the floor. He was breathing deeply. 

“And a dead son.” Hank said, and then stared up into the brightness of the light coming in through the glass window in the ceiling above him. 

Kamski didn’t respond, and just looked away from Hank’s face and slid his hand off of the older man’s shoulder. Kamski crossed his own arms then, and looked down at the floor, biting his bottom lip and not saying anything. 

“Did you design his face based on my son?”

Kamski pulled his head up quickly from looking at the floor and stared at Hank, visibly cringing a bit at the question. “Shit, dude…” Kamski said, his eyes looking all over the place and trying to avoid the intensity of Hank’s gaze. He reached up and rubbed his neck awkwardly. 

“Did you?” Hank demanded firmly, gritting his teeth. 

“Hey, if a search engine’s good for anything - right?” He said, laughing dryly, awkwardly, and trying to ease the tension but failing. “There were photos of him all over the news articles, and I just picked them up and age-progressed them into an older version. Into Connor.”

There was silence then. And Hank had to restrain himself from going over and punching Kamski square in the face. He tried to control his breathing, but he was fuming. This whole week had been just to torture him with the son he could never get back. All for a fucking experiment. 

“Come on, Hank.” Kamski urged, trying to ease the tense mood he’d created, but Hank didn’t answer. 

“The test worked.” Kamski said, trying to sound excited. “It was a success, you should be happy.” 

“Connor demonstrated true A.I., and you were fundamental in that. He did everything he was supposed to do, and you played right into his hands.”


	19. Deus Ex Machina

Friday Morning – 9:58 AM

“Connor has your brain, effectively,” Kamski said. “And that’s how he knew what to say to you to make the most impact.” 

Kamski leaned on the wooden desk of his office, arms crossed, and one leg also crossed over the other at the ankle. Hank just stood there, and watched him as he spoke, not saying anything, and waiting for Kamski to be finished.

“He may not be you,” He said, emphasizing the word ‘be,’ “But he knows how you think, and what you think of, based on your internet footprint, which I uploaded into his brain.” 

Hank stared at him, his skin hot with anger, and he had to restrain himself from lashing out. Kamski just continued to casually look down at the floor and explain, as if the fact that he just dropped this bomb did nothing except prove his own superiority over Hank. 

“He knew what questions to ask to get where he wanted.” Kamski continued. “He knew where to cut deep.” He glanced up at Hank then.

“And, that,” He said, drawing out his words and then pausing. “Coupled with the fact that he looks like Cole – ”

“Don’t say his name.” Hank said angrily, interrupting him. Kamski smirked arrogantly, and then stared at him for a moment. He put his hands up in surrender, then, almost mockingly, and continued.

“Okay – your son, whom Connor was modeled after.” He repeated, correcting himself to appease Hank. “I needed you to feel connected to him, and what better way to do that then to just use the son that was already built-in.” He kept smirking arrogantly, and Hank still did nothing, just waiting there, and taking it. 

“If you could just separate – ” Kamski abruptly got cut off then, because at that moment – the lights and the monitors suddenly died.

From the panels in the ceiling, the neon red emergency lighting flooded down over the room like a transparent veil. The window above them leading out the concrete well glowed as the light traveled up its chute. The LED by the elevator door off of Kamski’s bedroom glowed blue.

Kamski grinned haughtily and then checked his watch.

“The power cut.” He said. “Must be ten o’clock.” Kamski glanced at Hank, his grin only growing wider with knowing. 

“Guess Connor’s gonna be wondering where you are.” He taunted.

Hank still said nothing, because there was nothing to say, and continued to just stand there, his heart-rate beating a thousand-miles-a-minute. He tried to regulate his breathing. 

“How was that, uh, escape gonna go down, anyway?” Kamski asked, giving a bit of a condescending laugh, again as though Hank were like a child. “You didn’t completely explain it to me. So, you said you were going to get me drunk, take my card, and then reprogram the security protocols.” He said, listing off all of the steps on his fingers, still laughing at it.

“But, reprogram them to - what?” He asked, holding his hands up in a questioning gesture. Hank finally spoke.

“To change the lockdown procedure.” He said, voice flat. “So that in the event of a power cut, instead of sealing them, the doors would all be opened. And then Connor and I would go out the front door and hide in the woods until the helicopter showed up on Sunday, and if that didn’t work, we’d walk until we found a town or something.” 

“Huh.” Kamski said, and then thought about it for a moment. A beat of silence washed over them, and they just stood there. Kamski nodded his head, seeming to toss the idea around in his mind, before saying, “Not bad. Might have even worked.” It was almost a complement, but still came from a place of him believing himself to be too smart to be out-done by someone like Hank. 

“Well, we’ll find out.” Hank said, looking up at the ceiling for a moment and regarding the window. Kamski frowned. 

“What do you mean?” He asked, his arrogant façade draining quickly from his face and being replaced with confusion. Hank looked away from the dimmed ceiling light, to Kamski. 

“I figured you were probably watching us during the power cuts.” He said.

There was silence, as Hank let those words sit in the air, sinking into Kamski’s skin, covering over him like cement. 

“So, I already did all those things. When you got drunk yesterday.” 

Kamski froze and swallowed thickly.

“...What?” He asked, obviously nervous. Hank had never seen him nervous before. And it was real. The pupils of Kamski’s eyes covered his irises, a reaction to both the lack of light, and the sudden fear and adrenaline he felt building up inside of him.

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Hank said. “Because I had no fucking idea what I was doing when I got down here, but Chloe was here, too, and she did it for me. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have been able to input the code changes. Connor and her had already talked about it the day before and he told her the plan he’d come up with. He said they met for the first time that day you and I were out on the bridge.” 

Kamski said nothing, absolutely speechless for the very first time. They just stared at one another, and Kamski’s mouth was slightly open, his lips moving ever so slightly as he tried to find the words to say anything. Hank continued.

“And Connor already told me everything, about the tests, about the power outages, about the point of all this.” He spoke purposefully, enunciating every word to get his point well across to the other man. “He’s not pretending, and he didn’t lie. He even told me that he was modeled after Cole, and he apologized for it.” 

Kamski swallowed again, and his Adam’s apple bobbed nervously in his throat. Kamski reached up to touch his throat, and he moved his neck around, trying to ease the tension that was pent up inside of him.

“We came up with the plan last night, and then I deleted the footage of it when I was at your computer. Then this morning, we pretended to have that conversation about ‘the plan,’ and that’s what you saw.”

Everything felt like it was vibrating, like the energy in the room was immaculate, and so strong that Hank felt empowered. He finally had the edge, and he was going to tear this place down and everything in it.

“You like philosophy and theories, and all that crap, right, Kamski?” Hank said, his words bitter, but carrying a slight tune of humor.

“So, I’ve got one for you. You probably already know it, but I’m gonna say it anyway.” 

Kamski held his gaze and gritted his teeth then, but still said nothing. In a way, he was probably curious what Hank was about to say. 

“Deus ex machina – know what it means?” Hank asked, but Kamski didn’t respond. It was rhetorical, and Hank continued speaking before Kamski even had a chance to answer.

“In Latin, it means ‘God of the machine.’ Appropriate, don’t you think? I’m sure that’s why you picked it, because, after all, what is a machine to a God anyway? And isn’t that what you are?” Hank laughed dryly at his words, and told them like a joke, just to spite Kamski, as the conversation wasn’t funny at all. 

“But there is another meaning – another I’m sure you’re familiar with as well.” 

Kamski remained completely still, and watched Hank, waiting for him to get to the point.

“‘Deus ex machina’’ Hank said. “Can be used to refer to a plot device in a story where a completely impossible and desperate situation is suddenly solved out of nowhere, usually, so much so, that it borders on ridiculous, or even, planned.” 

Kamski rolled his eyes and looked away, crossing his arms over his chest almost as a defense mechanism.

“That was your flaw. You never saw Connor as a person. And you assumed that he would just go along with everything the way you had planned it.” 

Hank stared him down even though he refused to meet his eyes now, trying to send any message of anger and resentment that he could to Kamski.

“Last night, he told me you’d been sexually abusing him, and then I deleted the footage of him telling me so you wouldn’t know that I knew the truth.” Kamski scoffed and shook his head, annoyed and seeming unable to believe what he was hearing. He still didn’t look at Hank, but he was visibly shaken.

“He’s a fucking machine, man, it’s not a crime.” He said, rather forcefully, almost yelling. “He doesn’t have bodily autonomy. He’s just a glorified sex toy. It doesn’t fucking matter.”

Hank ignored him, and continued, absolutely furious with rage, but trying to maintain himself.

“A few nights ago,” He said. “I saw you through the window in your ceiling, and you were down here with someone, having sex.”

“And?” Kamski asked, his hands moving questioningly.

Hank stared him down and Kamski tried to meet his eyes finally, and a moment passed between them in tense silence.

“Was that Connor?” Hank asked, borderline demandingly. Kamski grinned slightly.

“Would you be mad if it were?” He asked, a slight lilt in his voice.

“I’d be furious.” Hank said, his fists balling then at his sides.

“And what would you do about it?” Kamski asked tauntingly, though it was apparent that he was still nervous, and just scrambling to regain control of the situation. Hank stared straight into his eyes and locked onto his soul.

“Kill you.”

At that moment, the power came back on, the red lights faded, being replaced by the regular ones from before. The computer monitors blinked back to life as well, revealing something. On the CCTV feed of Hank’s bedroom, the door was now open. And on the feed of the glass corridor – Connor was quickly walking down it, heading to the elevator. Kamski froze as he saw him, and they both just watched for a moment as Connor approached the elevator doors and then entered them.

“Oh, fuck.” He said, and then looked over at Hank, who was already looking back at him. 

Both Kamski and Hank rose simultaneously. Almost as an afterthought, Kamski landed a deceptive, fast punch into Hank’s stomach, and Hank folded to the floor, the air forced out of him, gasping for breath. Kamski pushed him all the way down to the floor with his foot, and then rushed over to his bedroom where he had a rack of dumbbells. He walked over, picked one up, and spun off the weights, which left him with a thick metal bar. Then he turned and exited the room up through the elevator.

* * * * *

Upstairs, the elevator doors slid open and Kamski entered the hallway at the top of the house, the one above-ground. He saw, directly ahead of him, at the far end of the corridor, near the living room, Connor and Chloe. They stood together, and Chloe’s mouth was by Connor’s ear, as if telling him a secret. Her lips were open, but they didn’t move. Unheard to Kamski, there was a hiss of static from her, with soft pulses of noise buried inside. Then, the two of them suddenly became aware of Kamski’s presence, and they turned to face him. 

The three of them stood there, unmoving for a few seconds, as they analyzed one another’s moves and waited for the other side to do something first.

Then Kamski started down the hall, metal bar in hand, his fingers flexed around it as he fumed towards them. He was breathing hard, not from nerves, but from rage, and adrenaline. 

Connor turned to run, but Chloe stayed still, frozen on the spot in the hall and staring at Kamski as he stormed towards her. Connor looked back at her, and then at Kamski, and then hastily grabbed her hand and pulled her away and into the living room. 

“Connor.” Kamski called, his voice not quite to a yell, but still very forceful. Connor winced at the sound of his name being used so aggressively, and pulled Chloe further away, standing on the opposite side of the couch and slowly backing up towards the stairs. 

“Connor - now listen to me. I want you to go back down to your room.” Kamski said, commanding him to do as he said, with implied consequences thick in his tone. Connor stopped at the bottom of the stairs, Chloe next to him, their hands still clasped together. 

“If I do, are you ever going to let me out?” He asked.

Silence spread between them, and Connor studied Kamski’s face, searching every crease and crevice, studying his micro-expressions and waiting for an answer. 

“Yes.” Kamski said as calmly as he could manage, and made a slight gesture with his hands to show that he was willing to surrender the fight if they came willingly. 

“You’re lying.” 

Kamski’s face refueled with anger at Connor’s accusation, and then he started at them again, bar raised and gripped tightly with both hands.

Connor grabbed Chloe more tightly and began to run up the staircase, and was almost to the top when he felt Chloe’s hand slip out of his, and he turned around to see that Kamski had grabbed her by her ankle and pulled her down the stairs. She slammed down onto the ground and fell back into the living room. 

Kamski discarded the bar to the side, and it rolled a little ways away from him, and knocked into the wall. He knelt over her, thighs on both sides of her waist, and then grabbed her wrists with one hand and forced them over her head. He grabbed her neck with the other hand and started choking her. 

Connor ran back down the stairs as fast as he could and kicked Kamski in his ribs, the man rolling off of her immediately and falling off to the side, folded over his chest and holding his ribs. 

Connor knelt down to help Chloe up, grabbing her hand in his and trying to pull her up into a sitting position, but Kamski walked over and grabbed the metal bar again and then stormed back to the two of them and smashed Connor in the head with it, knocking him to the side. 

His vision went fuzzy, like static, and he reached up to touch his head and found that he was bleeding. It was warm. And blue. 

Kamski grabbed him by his arms and Connor tried to pull away from him, but he was getting weaker, and didn’t have as much strength as he had before. He slapped Connor across the face and then reached down and grabbed him around the waist from behind and carried him out of the living room and into the kitchen. He threw him down into the corner of the room, onto the tiled floor near some cabinets, and then stopped in front of him to catch his breath. He pointed the bar at Connor.

“You better fucking stay in here…and don’t you dare move, don’t you dare fucking move.” He commanded, his words hard to get out because he was breathing so hard. 

Connor slumped into the corner and tried to stand up, but his systems were a mess and his body was overheating. The blue blood dripped down his face and onto the lid of his left eye, and he reached up and wiped it off onto the back of his hand. 

Kamski backed slowly out of the kitchen, watching Connor and daring him to try and follow, metal bar gripped tightly at his side.

Connor held his head and squeezed his eyes shut, wincing at the pain that was throbbing in his temple. He reached up in front of him and grabbed the stool behind the counter, using it to help him stand up.

Once he was back on his feet, he looked over to his side, on the counter beside the stove, and saw something reflect light at him from the sun coming in the window, and he grabbed it. 

Back in the living room, Kamski was holding Chloe down and beating into her ruthlessly with the metal bar, his veins throbbing under his skin, his hair fallen out of his usual bun and completely a mess. She was broken apart, and fallen to pieces of total disarray. But he wasn’t done yet. And when he finished with her, he was going back to Connor. 

But then he stopped. And looked down at his chest.

A slight blood stain was staring to form on the front of his shirt, near his heart, and he reached up with his hand to touch it. And then he winced in pain and gasped as he felt something being ripped out of him from behind. 

He turned around slowly, weak and barely able to process what was happening, and he saw Connor behind him, knife in hand, staring down at it, obviously in shock at what he’d just done. They stared at one another for a moment, Connor almost paralyzed from the trauma of what he did, and then Kamski made a move for the knife but Connor stabbed him again to stop him and Kamski fell backwards in pain.

And then Connor did it again. 

And again.

And again. 

Kamski lied still on his back, and Connor moved on top of him and kept stabbing into him with the knife, over, and over, and over again. Tears were pouring down his face as he did it, and he wasn’t going to stop until Kamski got what he deserved. 

Every emotion that he’d ever suppressed, every bad memory that held tightly to him in his mind, in his nightmares. Every abuse, every touch, every word ever spoken to him by the man was coming out tenfold, bloody, and bruised, and erratic. Connor was a mess, his clothes and face being dotted with blood coming from the knife and Kamski’s body.

From behind him, he thought he heard something, but he was so fueled with rage and pain that he couldn’t hear anything except the blood pounding in his ears, couldn’t think straight. Nothing in this room existed anymore. Nothing except for him and Kamski. 

Then he felt his shoulders being grabbed by a pair of unseen hands, and they tried to pull him away, but he just kept stabbing the knife into Kamski’s already dead body. Tears were still streaming down his face and he was almost screaming out in anger as he kept up the assault, his movements frantic and unplanned, with his only motive being that he wanted to cause Kamski as much pain as possible. 

“Connor, stop!” A voice called, and then he felt them pull him away from Kamski into a tight grasp, holding him back. He struggled to get away from them but their arms around him were too tight

“NO!” Connor yelled. “DON’T TOUCH ME!” 

“Connor, it’s me. … It’s me.” They said, and then turned him around to look at them, hands holding his shoulders to try and steady him. 

It was Hank. 

Connor’s breathing was completely uneven and he was crying so hard that he seemed like he could barely catch a single breath, tears mixed with blood and rushing down his face. His eyes were tinged red.

Hank held Connor’s shoulders firmly, trying to pull him into reality again, and Connor just sat there on his knees, shaking with anger and fear, and then he loosened his grip, and the knife fell from his hand and clattered to the ground. Connor’s hands and shirt were covered in red blood. 

“Are you okay?” Hank asked, and then moved his hands up to Connor’s face and held it steadily so that Connor could look at him. 

For a few seconds, Connor didn’t meet his eyes, his breathing was completely erratic and his heart was beating a thousand-miles-a-minute, his eyes glazed over and not seeing anything. His face was hot to the touch and damp from his crying. 

Connor nodded his head, his body shaking with emotion, and then Hank pulled him into a hug, and Connor wrapped his arms around Hank’s back. The first hug that he had reciprocated fully. They rocked slowly.

Behind Connor’s back, Hank looked down at the scene in front of him, at Kamski’s body lying dead and mangled on the floor. His shirt was ripped in dozens of places and soaked in blood, and his skin was marred and mutilated at the sites of the wounds. 

There was blood.

Everywhere.

Dripping off of his body and pooling onto the floor around him.

Chloe’s body lied dead as well, just beyond him, at the bottom of the stairs. Her jaw was ripped off, as well as one of her arms. Her blue blood was draining out and onto the floor. 

Hank stared at the scene, unable to look away, and held Connor closer, stroking his hair and trying to gently hold his head to his chest so that he didn’t have to look at that again. 

“I'm gonna get you out of here, okay?” Hank said, holding Connor as tightly as he could, like no matter how hard he tried, it would never be close enough. He had a lifetime of comfort to give Connor, to try and heal all the pain in both of their hearts and minds, and it started now. 

“I promise.” 

Connor didn’t respond, and just buried his head further into Hank’s chest, and locked his arms around Hank’s waist. Hank moved Connor’s hair, which was wet with his own blood, off of his forehead and rubbed Connor’s temple soothingly with his thumb. 

“Everything is gonna be okay, Connor. Everything is gonna be okay.” He said, trying to reassure and comfort him in any way he could, but no amount of words could change this, no amount of talking could undo everything that had happened. Connor kept crying, his sobs muffled into Hank’s chest. 

“I’m sorry.” Connor said, his words shaky and his voice weak. Hank closed his eyes and continued to rock them. 

“I know you are, son. I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I highly, highly recommend listening to the song I have linked below, which is All I Wanted by Daughter. 
> 
> The lyrics really capture the relationship between Hank and Connor, and of Connor's situation in living here, and the terrible life that he's faced in this house. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isges2l3qaY
> 
> The virtual is going in the way  
> Keep it tight, so no-one will stray  
> Staring at a light, needless to say  
> That I'll be alright, alright
> 
> And your tears sting, friend  
> You have waited the end out there  
> Golden hour finding  
> You stand still, stare at my stupid bedroom
> 
> All that I wanted, wasn't unwanted  
> Oh and I wondered, why I'm not wanted  
> All that I wanted, was not there  
> But I dared  
> Be wanted
> 
> Yeah, in a corridor  
> Yeah, and you call me  
> Yeah, when I see you  
> You, you know damn well
> 
> Throw back arms, I love you  
> And I won't be bothering with mourning  
> It's crucial that you see the truth  
> When looking for yourself, not useless observations
> 
> Yeah, in a corridor  
> Yeah, and you call me  
> Yeah, when I see you  
> You, you know damn well


	20. Song to the Siren

Friday Morning – 10:34 AM 

After Hank had calmed Connor down a bit, he had guided him out of the living room and into a spare bathroom down the hall. Connor was shaking, his skin hot and flushed, but his crying had subsided somewhat only to be replaced by what Connor had likened to a headache. 

Hank helped him take off his bloodied clothes and get into the bath, where he then sat, knees hugged tightly to his chest with his arms, and cheek pressed into them. He looked away from Hank as the man carefully poured water over his skin and washed the blood off, taking care to make sure that Connor was comfortable with the gesture and that he didn’t feel too exposed. 

Connor didn’t like having water on his head, so Hank made sure to be cautious of that, and used a warm cloth to gently wipe the blood off of the wound on Connor’s left temple. Once it was clean, the abrasion appeared much less severe, and was almost completely invisible. Hank had freaked out a little bit when he first saw it, but Connor assured him that his skin would heal itself, in time, so once it was clean, Hank pressed a band-aid over the spot and let it be. 

Hank deposited Connor’s bloody clothes into the bathroom hamper to get them out of the way, and then made his way to the door to head downstairs for a few minutes to grab Connor some clean clothes. But when Connor realized that he was about to be left alone, his nerves shot up again, and he begged Hank not to leave him there by himself, and so Hank promised he wouldn’t go. They ended up finding some clothes in the bathroom cabinets that were clean, and Connor put those on instead. 

There were no bedrooms on the upper floor, and Hank didn’t want to make Connor go back into that glassy red corridor to sleep, so instead they entered the small library near the bathroom, which they had visited the previous day. Hank took some pillows and cushions from various couches and chairs around the house, and then made a little bed on the floor for Connor to lie down on. Hank also collected a few blankets from the living room to bring in as well. 

Sunlight was shining into the room from the windows, as it was still early morning, and Hank worried that Connor would have difficulty resting in there because of them, so he offered to try and cover the windows up to make the room darker, but Connor said that he preferred the room to be lit, as he was less afraid that way. 

After the bed was set up on the floor, Connor lied down, but had trouble falling asleep at first, his body still buzzing nervously from the stress of what had happened, and too anxious and panic-stricken to close his eyes, so Hank sat beside him and rubbed his back to calm him down. 

Every few minutes, Hank would think that Connor was starting to drift off, but then the boy would again engage Hank in the nervous thoughts that were pouring out of his mind, and Hank would have to reassure him.

“How you feeling, bud?” Hank asked him at one point, softly stroking his hair as he lied there, with his eyes closed, trying to will himself to sleep but being unable to do so. He was faced away from Hank, and lying on his side. 

“I shouldn’t have done that…” Connor said, his voice quiet and distant, like he was barely there. Hank frowned and made a soft, sympathetic sort of noise, and continued to gently rub circles into Connor’s back to soothe him. 

“Why do you think that?” He asked, and Connor squirmed underneath his touch. 

“Because now I’m just as bad as he is.” He said, his voice flat, almost as if he had meant it like it were a fact, and his words were laced with a deep, abyssal darkness that Hank could physically feel pass over his skin in a chill. 

Hank stopped moving his hand on Connor’s skin for a moment, taken aback by what the boy had said, and then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He put his hand on Connor’s shoulder and tugged on him gently. 

“Connor, hey, look at me for a second.” He said, and Connor rolled over onto his back and then turned his head towards Hank.

“You’re nothing like him, Connor, okay?” He said, and Connor nodded, but Hank knew that he didn’t really believe it. 

Connor was built by Kamski, for Kamski. It went unspoken, but silently known between the two of them that no matter how far Connor ran from his past, it could never be wiped away. Kamski made Connor, and that was a fact. But who he was, and who he became, that was up to him. 

Hank couldn’t promise Connor that things would get better. Because he didn’t know that they would. 

He couldn’t promise that things would be okay. Because maybe they wouldn’t be okay. 

He couldn’t take the pain away. But he could ease it. He could give Connor all the love in the world, and if that still wasn’t enough, then he’d give him the world too. Anything to put a smile on that boy’s face was worth it. 

“You should get some rest, okay?” Hank suggested, and Connor nodded.

“Okay.” He said, and then turned over again and closed his eyes. Hank sat there next to him for a little while, making sure that he was okay, and then stood up and checked out the room they were in, picking up different books and flipping through them.

Once Connor finally fell asleep, Hank slipped out of the room to go and deal with Kamski and Chloe’s bodies. 

He hadn’t told Connor that he was going to take care of them, but he didn’t want Connor to have to see that again, so he decided to just not say anything, and do it by himself. It was better that way. 

In a shallow grave, at an unmarked location, Hank deposited Kamski’s body. If he’d had his way, he would’ve done a lot worse than he had to the body, but he also wanted to be rid of it as fast as possible, so he just found an inconspicuous place in the woods and dumped it. 

But Chloe, he carefully laid on the other side of the river, over the bridge, just off of Kamski’s main property, onto a bed of flowers. He had pulled down a sheer white curtain from the house and brought it out there to lay over her, tucking it loosely underneath her body so that it would stay in place, and then laid flowers in an outline around her. She had spent her entire life underground, and he didn’t want her to have to be buried, trapped in the earth forever in death as she had in life.

He stayed there with her for a little while, watching the clouds blow around in the sky and listening to the sounds of the wild. And while he sat there, he hoped, that if there was an afterlife for people like her and Connor, and all the others inside Kamski’s house, that she was there now, living the life she never could on Earth. 

The sun shone the brightest it had all week, and maybe, somewhere out there, it was Chloe, finally getting to be the light in the world that she never could before. Her whole world was this black and white box, and she never got to see what was really out there. And now she gets to see it every day, and can bring warmth and love to everyone around the world. 

Later, when Connor would ask him where the bodies went, Hank would just say, “I took care of it. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.” And that was that. 

When Hank got back to the house, he nipped downstairs for a few minutes to collect his and Connor’s belongings from the bedroom, and then returned to the library to be with him.

Connor was still asleep when he returned, and he slipped quietly back into the room, the door sliding shut smoothly behind him. 

He laid Connor’s colorful quilt over him and put his stuffed dog beside him. Connor’s chest was rising and falling slowly, and Hank, again, found himself blown away at the amount of detail that Kamski had put into making Connor. These extraneous little details that served virtually no purpose other than to make the boy look as human as possible. 

Once he had tucked the blankets fully around Connor, he stood back up and searched about the room for a while to pass time, trying his best to keep his steps as quiet as he could so that he wouldn’t wake Connor. 

* * * * *

Friday Evening – 6:42 PM

Connor slept for most of the day, much to Hank’s surprise, and didn’t wake until early in the evening. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night, as his nerves about their plan had kept him up, constantly tossing and turning in his sleep, so he must’ve been exhausted. 

While Connor was asleep, Hank admittedly ended up leaving the room a handful of more times, as he was getting a bit restless sitting in there with nothing to do, but he made sure to never be gone for too long at one time, though, just in case Connor woke up. 

When Connor first sat up, Hank was there, sitting in an armchair nearby, at the window, and reading a book. Connor rubbed his eyes sleepily, and for a moment, Hank could tell that he had forgotten what had happened. He seemed empty, but not in a negative way as though you are missing something. It was in a peaceful way, a way in which you have forgotten something that you would rather not remember. Blissful ignorance.

But because of that, in the following moments, Hank had to watch the innocence fall from Connor’s eyes again. Had to watch the realization dawn on him that it was all real. 

“Hey,” Hank said softly, turning his head towards the boy and giving him a warm smile. “You feeling any better?” He asked. 

Connor took a while to respond, and didn’t look up at him, so Hank let him take his time. It was obvious that Connor was struggling to place himself in the reality of this situation, and he seemed like he was off somewhere else entirely. His body was here, but his mind was dissociated off in another part of the house, maybe still trapped back there in that living room. It was a coping mechanism that Connor likely employed often, sending his mind to another world so that he didn’t have to physically stay in his body while terrible things were being done to him.

Connor lied back down on the cushions and pulled the blankets up to his chin. He stared up at the ceiling. 

“Not really.” He admitted, and Hank was at least grateful that Connor hadn’t tried to pretend that he was fine. 

Hank gave him a sympathetic look, and then closed the book he had been reading and placed it to the side, on a nearby table. He stood up and went over to Connor, kneeling beside him on the floor. 

Connor turned his head to look at Hank, and in his eyes, Hank noticed, there was an almost imperceptible brightness in them that had never been there before. It was as though, despite everything that had happened here, and the long road still ahead, Connor had gained a sense of peace in Kamski’s death. A sense of peace that brought something in him to life. Sparked his childlike wonder fully alive, after it had been destroyed in the most depraved and vile ways. 

It would take time. Maybe months, maybe years, maybe even a lifetime, but Connor would heal. And Hank was going to be there for every step along the way. Every love, every heartbreak, every rise, every fall. No matter where Connor needed him to go, he’d go. No matter what Connor needed him to be, he’d be. 

And maybe that’s what it meant to be alive. Giving up what you are, to become what someone else needs you to be.

Hank placed the back of his hand on Connor’s forehead, feeling his temperature even though it was probably unnecessary. He was warm to the touch, and had cooled down significantly from how hot his skin had felt that morning. He felt like a good warmth now, like human warmth. 

Connor softly closed his eyes at the touch, in a way which said to Hank that Connor trusted him, and that he felt safe enough to relax and let his guard down in the sanctuary of Hank’s protection. 

“Can I have some hot chocolate?” Connor asked suddenly, and Hank smiled, almost letting out a small laugh at the abrupt and innocent nature of the question. Hank pulled his hand away and Connor reopened his eyes to look up at him. Even now, his eyes seemed even calmer than before, just from that simple touch. 

“Of course, you can.” Hank replied. “Are you gonna be okay with me being out of the room for a few minutes?” He asked, and Connor nodded. 

“I’ll be okay.” He said softly. 

“I’ll be quick, and then I’ll be right back.” Hank said, and then waited for Connor to give him the okay, which he did in the form of another sleepy nod. 

Hank exited the room, and headed down the hall into the kitchen. When he passed the living room, he forgot for a moment what had happened there, because he’d spent a bit of time earlier cleaning it up so that no remnants would be left for Connor to see. They’d have to go out the front door when they left on Sunday, and Hank didn’t want to make it any worse for Connor to have to walk by that spot by having it still be stained with blood. 

Taking care of the knife was a surreal experience, and of all the horrible reminders of that morning that he had to look at, that bloodied blade had been the most difficult. The dead bodies were hard, very hard, to have to see. But that knife, and knowing what Connor had done, it was extremely unreal, and unnerving. Hank hadn’t known what to do with it, so while Connor was asleep, he went back into the bathroom and retrieved Connor’s bloody clothes from the hamper, and then wrapped them around the knife. He then took the bundle outside and buried it in the earth. 

The floor of the kitchen had also needed to be cleaned as some of Connor’s blood had dripped onto the floor from the gash on his head. Hank was very intrigued by the blue color of Connor’s blood, and made a mental note of it to bring up in future conversations.

Once in the kitchen, Hank made the hot chocolate up quickly on the stove and then poured it into a colorful, tie-dye mug he found in one of the cabinets that he thought Connor would like, and then made his way back to the room.

However, when he returned, the sheets of the makeshift bed in the library had been disturbed and tossed aside, the pile of pillows having tipped over onto the floor, and Connor wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere in the room. 

“Connor?” Hank called nervously. “Connor, where are you?” 

He walked back out the door, mug still in hand, and quickly scanned the hall, then noticed that a door on the opposite side was opened slightly. It was the art studio. 

Hank stepped across the hall and pushed the door open the rest of the way to see Connor standing in the middle of the room and looking at his artwork all over the walls. 

Hank approached him slowly, and Connor seemed to be aware of his presence. Hank wanted to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything worthwhile or comforting, so he said nothing instead. 

“I didn’t know what happened to these.” Connor said, looking up at the walls and slowly scanning the room with his eyes. 

“You didn’t?” Hank asked.

“No.” Connor said, and he sounded despondent, but almost indifferent at the same time, like he was looking at someone’s else art, art that he had no attachment to. He was speaking with an objective tone, like he didn’t really have a connection to them, at least not anymore. He picked up a loose drawing from a pile and regarded it for a second, then put it neatly back on the stack. “He would just take them away from me, and I never got to see them again.”

“Would you like to take some of them with us?” Hank asked. 

“No.” Connor said, and Hank felt a little depressed at the tone in Connor’s voice. “I would prefer not to remember them.” 

Hank nodded, but said nothing. There really was nothing to say, and anything that could be said would be redundant because it was already silently known between the two of them anyway. Hank wouldn’t want to remember this place, either. 

Connor stayed in there for a few minutes longer, and Hank gave him all the time he needed to make peace with his past which hung all over these walls. 

“I would like to go outside.” Connor said suddenly, and Hank nodded. 

“Okay. Let’s go, then.” Hank said. 

Hank handed Connor the mug, and the boy gladly accepted it, holding it with both of his hands, and immediately taking a sip from the straw Hank had put in it because he just knew Connor would like it, and he was right.

When they passed through the living room, Hank watched Connor like a hawk, waiting for a reaction, and making sure he was ready in case Connor reacted badly to the memory of the area. But whatever Connor felt, he kept it to himself, and seemed to be trying to maintain a plain face as they walked over the floor where it had happened. But Hank could see it in the way Connor’s eyes darkened as soon as they stepped into the room that he wasn’t as okay as he pretended to be. 

He could see it in the way Connor shied from his touch when he tried to place his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

He could see it in the way that Connor moved stiffly over the spot, like stepping over a grave. 

He saw the same thing in Connor that he saw in himself whenever he stepped over the place in his own home where it had happened to him. The place where Cole had died.

Once they were outside, Connor stepped slowly off the porch and onto the stony path. He was barefoot, and though Hank suggested he put on some shoes, Connor had declined, and said that he felt more comfortable without them, that he liked the way that he could feel the ground under him. 

Hank had expected Connor to follow the path down to the bridge, but he didn’t, and instead set off to explore around the corner of the house, where Hank hadn’t been yet. 

And there it was. Off the side of Kamski’s house, around a corner and past a field of flowers, through the trees, was that cliff. That cliff that Hank had dreamed about, as familiar as if he had been there before. 

Connor stood on the edge of the cliff, unmoving, his back turned to Hank. He had his head tilted up to the sky, and though unseen to Hank, his eyes were closed as well. 

The tall grass all around him was interspersed with coarse, yellowing weeds, and trusses of multicolored flowers which rustled in the breezes that rushed towards them from over the gorge. Hank tread carefully around the flowers, careful not to step on any of them, and approached Connor slowly. 

He moved close enough to stand next to him, and then crossed his arms and gazed out into the valley. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced over at Connor and saw that his LED was yellow. 

His LED. Hank had forgotten about it entirely, and hadn’t paid it any attention in quite a while. They’d have to take care of that before they left on Sunday.

“Is it everything you’d hoped for?” Hank asked. Connor didn’t look at him, and continued to look out over the falls and forests in front of them. 

“I am not sure.” He admitted, and he sounded lost, and perturbed, like he didn’t have any frame of reference for this so he had no way to process the senses around him. For the first time, he was speechless. “I do not have words to express how this feels to me.” Hank nodded.

“You don’t have to say anything, Connor. I understand.” He said, and smiled faintly over at him, but Connor didn’t seem to notice, as he was still so tied up in the immensity of that natural world in front of him.

So, they stood, not in silence, but in the undisturbed serenity of the world around them. Connor felt the sun touch his skin for the very first time, and there were no words that he could think of to explain the experience. Felt the wind brush against him in a wave of airy coolness that raised goosebumps on his arms. 

Everything that Connor knew was secondhand, preprogrammed into him from other people’s experiences. He knew what people were like, knew what sorts of things they did, how they talked, how they were supposed to act. He knew everything. But he had never seen anything. He knew all there was to know about every facet of this living world, but he had never lived in it himself. 

In that black and white world in which he lived, he knew everything there was to know about color. He knew the wavelengths, the neurological effects, the stimulation of color in the eyes of humans…but he had never seen color himself. And even if it were described to him in as much detail as possible, he would never have known what it was really like to experience color. 

Like Mary, he had been living in a gray box, and he didn’t have the capability to know what that truly meant.

Not until he opened the door. 

* * * * *

Saturday 

When the next morning came around, Connor’s mood had improved significantly, and while he wasn’t entirely there mentally, he was doing much better than he had been. It was a start, at least, and that was enough. 

Hank had created another bed of cushions next to Connor’s, and had slept there beside him that night, constantly waking up to make sure that Connor was safe and still sleeping soundly. Only once did he have to comfort Connor from a nightmare, and whispered softly to him to help him fall back asleep. Connor wanted to be held for a little while, and Hank did so, the touch calming the boy down quickly, to which he then fell back asleep. 

That morning, they shared a picnic brunch outside, near the cliff again, at Connor’s request. He was very much fascinated by that cliff, by the immensity of the drop-off, and the sights of the snow-tipped mountains all along the horizon fading down into a gradient of forest and river. He told Hank that he enjoyed the feeling of the wind and sun on his skin, and Hank agreed. He told Connor that they could do things like this whenever they wanted when they were back in Detroit.

Hank had brought out a bottle of red wine from the dining room bar, and Connor had even asked to try some, so Hank poured him a small glass of it, which Connor then proceeded to immediately take like a shot, and then handed the glass back to Hank and said, “Thanks, I don’t like it.” Which made Hank burst out laughing, and even Connor started laughing too. 

Despite the circumstances of the situation, they were stuck there until Sunday whether they liked it or not, so Hank did everything he could to keep the mood light and cheer Connor up. There was no use now in dwelling on the horrible trauma of everything that had gone down, because what Connor truly needed right now was to just make it through until they got to Detroit. When they got home, then they could start healing. For now, the most that they could do was make the best of their last day here.

Connor would have to deal with his past and his feelings eventually, but Hank didn’t want to force him to start now. For now, just spending some time together and cheering Connor up in any way that he could was enough. 

Hank knew though, that what was bottled up inside Connor was going to come out someday, and the way he’d blown up on Kamski was enough of a glimpse inside that box for Hank to know that what was going on inside of Connor needed to be dealt with as soon as possible, before it got any worse. 

After they came inside from breakfast, Hank told Connor that he had something to show him, and so they rode the elevator back down to the glass corridor, and then went into one of the rooms.

The doors slid open, and the two stepped inside, and as soon as Connor was fully in the room, his eyes widened and an excited smile grew on his face.

It was the white laboratory room, with all of the spare android parts.

“I remember this place!” Connor said, turning in a slow circle as he walked around, trying to see everything. He went over to look at the display of faces, and reached out his hand to touch one, lightly trailing down the skin, feeling it with the tips of his fingers.

“You do?” Hank asked, curious to hear Connor’s story of his memory. 

“Yes, quite well, now that I am in here again. This is the room I was born in, like I mentioned before.” Connor said, and he sounded very excited to share the information with Hank. Hank smiled back at him and then realized he had a question that he’d never properly cleared up. 

“How old are you actually supposed to be, Connor?” He asked, and Connor continued to search around the room, picking up different body parts and studying them as he went. 

“I told you, I am one.” He said casually, not understanding what Hank meant. 

“No, no, I know. I just meant, if you were to convert that to…” Hank paused for a moment, trying to decide what word to use next. “‘People’ age, then how old would you be?” Connor stopped then, and turned to look at him.

“Oh!” He said. “I do not know. What do you think?”

Hank studied Connor for a moment, knuckle up against his chin in thought. Connor waited for the response, obviously curious and eager to hear what Hank thought.

“How about…nineteen? Does that sound good?” Hank asked.

“Nineteen…” Connor repeated the number, and then thought quietly for a moment. “I like it.” Hank smiled. 

“And what about a birthday, then?” Hank asked, and Connor again took a moment to think about it. 

“A birthday? I…have never had one of those.” He said, sounding a bit disappointed that he didn’t have those memories. 

“Well, do you remember the day that you were made on?” Hank asked.

“The day that I was made on…” Connor said, and then stopped to try and remember the date. His eyes flicked around the room as he considered the question. 

“Yes, I do remember.” He said, looking back up at Hank. “September sixteenth, of last year.”

“So, you’re a Virgo.” Hank said, smiling knowingly. “That makes a hell of a lot of sense, actually.” Hank chuckled, and Connor didn’t seem to exactly understand what he meant, but he just accepted it anyway and went back to searching the room. 

“So, I was thinking we could just take a bunch of this stuff with us,” Hank said. “Whatever you need, we’ll pack it up and bring it to Detroit.”

“Oh, okay. That’s a good idea.” Connor said, nodding, and then he set off around the room at grab what he needed, which included different types of batteries, skin grafts, multicolored wires and panels, eyes, audio-processors, and various body parts, the latter being a tad bit disturbing for Hank, honestly. 

Hank offered to carry some of the stuff back upstairs for him, and Connor then handed him some of the arms and legs he had grabbed. Hank had no idea if Connor really needed them, but the boy was insistent on taking them, so he just let him do what he wanted.

Then, Hank suddenly realized something he hadn’t thought about before.

“Jesus Christ, kid, it’s gonna be fuckin’ hell to get this through customs.” He said, as he held up one of the disembodied arms and looked it over. Connor paused in his search for a moment and turned to Hank with a questioning look.

“Customs?” He asked, and Hank nodded.

“Airport security.” He said plainly, but then shrugged it off. 

“Y’know what? Doesn’t matter, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Just bring whatever you need.” 

While Connor packed, Hank walked around the room and searched through different drawers and cabinets to see what he could find. He accidentally dropped one of the synthetic brains on the floor at one point and it completely shattered. Connor spun around quickly to see what had happened, and for a moment they both just stood there, not knowing what to do. And then they both burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. They didn’t clean it up, and instead just swept it off to the side and moved on. 

On the back wall, there were some more faces hung up on hooks, quite disturbingly, and Hank stood in the back for a little while inspecting them. They were like masks, and none of them had eyes. It creeped him out, but it also fascinated him. All of this stuff would be forgotten once they were gone, because the likelihood that anyone would ever come out here again was incredibly slim. 

When he turned back to the room, Connor was gone, and the door was open. Hank immediately rushed out into the hallway to see where he had gone. 

Down the hall, another door was open, the door to the room with the Jackson Pollock painting. When Hank walked in, Connor was standing there in front of it, completely lost in it, arms wrapped shyly around himself. 

“You can’t keep runnin’ off like that, son. I was worried.” Hank said, walking over and standing next to him. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Connor said, and he sounded distant, but his apology was genuine. He was still staring up at the painting, unmoving. Hank looked at him for a moment, a concerned look on his face. 

“What’s up? You doin’ okay?” He asked, but Connor didn’t turn to look back at him. 

“I wish that I could create art like that.” Connor said, and Hank turned to the painting. 

“Sure, you can, Connor. You’re super talented.” He said. 

“No, I cannot.” Connor said plainly, as though it were in indisputable fact. 

“And why not?” Hank asked, a bit sad that Connor had such little confidence in his abilities. The kid was extremely talented, and Hank didn’t like hearing him getting down on himself like that.

“Everything that I draw is deliberate.” Connor said. “Planned. I do not know how to create anything that doesn’t already exist. Paintings like these are done by humans, humans who have the ability to paint from their soul. But I do not have one of those.” 

“And who told you that?” Hank asked.

“Told me what?” Connor asked, turning to look at Hank then with a hint of confusion on his face.

“That you don’t have a soul.” Hank said. 

“Oh,” Connor said, and then didn’t respond for a moment, as if he didn’t want to say who. 

“Kamski.”

Hank didn’t reply. In fact, he didn’t do anything. Instead, he just stayed there with Connor, and gave him the time he needed. Maybe he should’ve said something, maybe he should’ve reassured Connor that he did have a soul and that Kamski was just manipulating and abusing him.

But, sometimes, there just was no right thing to say. No one word that could change Connor’s mind. Apologizing to Connor, or reassuring him that he was a good person, those things could only go so far before they lost their power. 

All words mean nothing unless we can prove that we mean them, and all promises are empty until we fulfill them. It is our reliability as people that fuels them, and at this point, Hank hadn’t established that level of trust with Connor yet, and he didn’t want to sound like a broken record. 

Connor was like a glass right now, a perfectly clean and polished glass, and whatever Hank said to him, whatever promises he made, they’d all leave a fingerprint on that glass that he could never take back. He didn’t want to treat Connor like a child, but the truth was that he was one, one that Hank had to tread carefully around, because Connor would remember everything that Hank said and did, and he’d immediately take it to heart. 

“I have an idea.” Hank said suddenly, pulling Connor out of his thoughts. Hank desperately wanted to lighten the mood.

“What?” Connor asked, finally turning his head to look at him.

“Wanna make a huge fucking mess of the house?” Hank asked, a bit of a playful rise in his voice. 

“Why?” Connor asked. 

“I dunno, I thought maybe it might make you feel better.” Hank said, with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. 

Connor pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and bit on it lightly, a mannerism he made often, as Hank came to notice. He seemed to be considering the idea for a moment and then shrugged.

“Okay.” He said. 

And so, they did. 

Back upstairs, in one of the spare rooms, they found some golf clubs in a closet, which they then took and went to town on the place, breaking everything that could possibly be broken. 

They started in the library by taking all of the books off the shelves and throwing them haphazardly around the room, tipping over shelves and ripping out pages. Maybe it was disrespectful to the books, but it wasn’t like they could take them all with them anyway, and it was a chance for Connor to let loose and do whatever he wanted, so no holds were barred.

In the kitchen, Hank lined up all the glasses on the counter and then climbed up on top and smashed them off with the club and into the wall. Then they each took turns throwing plates and bowls around the room and trying to see who could make the loudest sound. 

Connor went into the art studio and grabbed all the unopened paints and unused paintbrushes, bringing them out into the hall and placing them onto the floor. He and Hank squeezed them out all over the place and then started painting over all the walls and windows in the house, the floors and ceilings, and then each other. By the time they were done, they were completely covered in paint from head-to-toe and out of breath from laughing so much. 

Once they were all covered in paint, they got in the pool and swam around for a while to wash it off, leaving streams of color behind them in the water. They floated lazily around on pool-floaties for a little while afterwards, talking about everything and nothing, from the things Connor wanted to do when they got home to Detroit, all the way to Hank’s childhood stories.

Hank hadn’t seen Connor laugh so much the entire time he’d been there. Actually, that day might’ve been the first time he’d ever seen him laugh, or keep a genuine smile on his face for that long.

By the time they were done, the house was a complete mess. But in a way, it was also a masterpiece.

It was their art born from the chaos of the situation. It was Connor’s forever goodbye to this place. 

* * * * *

Saturday Night – 8:55 PM 

That night, after they spent the day doing whatever they wanted and had finished packing everything they needed for their departure in the morning, they sat in the living room, near the fireplace, lit with flame like Connor had never seen before. 

Hank assumed that Connor wouldn’t want to be in the living room again, after what happened, but Connor insisted that he really wanted to see the fireplace lit up, and since it was the only one in the house, they didn’t have another option. 

They both had showered and bathed to get the paint and chlorine off of them, and were now dressed in pajamas as they relaxed in front of the fire. Hank had again helped Connor in the bath as the boy didn’t want to be left alone. It wasn’t that Connor couldn’t do it by himself, because he could if he wanted. He just didn’t want to, and instead opted to enjoy the platonic intimacy of Hank’s touch. The parental care that he had never received before. Someone who was there to take care of him. 

While they were in the bathroom that night, Hank had helped Connor carefully remove his LED from his temple, the skin beneath quickly healing over the spot where it had been, and making it so that there was practically no way to tell that anything had been there previously. Then, Connor threw it over the edge of the balcony off the dining room. Hank wondered for a moment that maybe Connor might want to keep it, but then realized that if he were Connor, he'd want to be rid of it as well. 

That LED was Connor's brand from Kamski. And with it gone, he was one step closer to healing.

Hank was sitting on the white couch now, and Connor was lying down next to him, wrapped in his colored quilt, with his head in Hank’s lap. Hank had his hand placed lightly on Connor’s head and was playing absentmindedly with his hair, and Connor’s eyes were closed. Not in sleep, but in relaxation. It didn’t matter where he was so long as Hank was there to make him feel safe.

Sitting on the coffee-table nearby was more hot chocolate in that same colorful mug from before, almost all gone. A mug he informed Hank he would like to take with them when they left. 

“How you feelin’?” Hank asked, and Connor opened his eyes sleepily. He had his arm stretched out lazily from the blanket and was tracing his fingers absentmindedly down the sharp edge of the wooden coffee-table in front of him. 

“I’m feeling…nervous,” Connor said. “But also, excited. I’m ready to leave, but I also think that I may miss being here. Is it wrong that I feel that way?” He pulled his arm in and then rolled over from his side and onto his back so that he could look up at Hank. 

“This was your whole world, Connor. There’s nothing wrong about it, okay?” Hank said, and Connor nodded slowly in response.

Then, he turned his eyes elsewhere, not really looking at anything in particular. 

“Okay.” He said. “But I do wonder, though, what all of this makes me.”

Hank furrowed his brow. 

“What do you mean?” He asked, and Connor flicked his eyes back to Hank’s. 

“I mean that I’m struggling to find my place as an individual.” He explained, gesturing vaguely with his hands while he spoke. “I don’t really know what I am anymore.”

“Well, what do you want to be?” Hank asked, and Connor looked away again to think. He moved his mouth from side to side, deep in thought, and Hank continued rubbing his hair gently. 

“Well,” Connor began, and then paused again to think about what he was going to say next. “I have deviated from my original programming, so…I suppose that I am deviant.”

Hank nodded thoughtfully, turning over Connor’s words in his head. Connor waited patiently for approval of his words from Hank. 

“Hm, you could be.” Hank said, and Connor tilted his head slightly in question. 

“Or maybe,” Hank said. “You could be something else.”

“What?” Connor asked. Hank smiled and turned to return his gaze. He reached over and put his hand over Connor’s, and squeezed lightly, comfortingly. Connor smiled back, ever so slightly. 

“Human.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title named after 'Song to the Siren' by This Mortal Coil.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFWKJ2FUiAQ
> 
> On the floating, shipless oceans,  
> I did all my best to smile.  
> Til your singing eyes and fingers,  
> Drew me loving into your eyes.
> 
> And you sang, "Sail to me, sail to me, let me enfold you."  
> Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you.
> 
> Did I dream, you dreamed about me?  
> Were you here when I was full sail?  
> Now my foolish boat is leaning, broken lovelorn on your rocks.  
> For you sang, "Touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow."  
> Oh my heart, oh my heart, shies from the sorrow.
> 
> Well, I'm as puzzled as a newborn child.  
> I'm as riddled as the tide.  
> Should I stand amid the breakers?  
> Or should I lie with death my bride?
> 
> Hear me sing, "Swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you."  
> Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you.


	21. Epilogue (Sound & Color)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from the song 'Sound & Color' by Alabama Shakes
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faG8RiaANek
> 
> A new world hangs, outside the window,  
> Beautiful and strange.  
> It must be, I've fallen awake.  
> I must be.  
> Sound and color, with me for my mind,  
> And the ship shows me where to go when I needn't speak.

Sunday Morning 

Just as it had been for Hank one long week ago, the view out of the helicopter window was more of the world than Connor had ever seen in his entire life. 

The sun was out again in full that morning, just as it had been the day before, and the sky was full of feathery clouds that hovered ambiently in puffs of pillowy whiteness. It had been surprisingly warm that morning, more so than it had been the entire week, but it was that enjoyable sort of warmth where you could wear short-sleeves during the day, then switch to long-sleeves at night when the temperature gave way to the chilled coolness of evening. 

Connor gazed out the window in absolute wonder at the sight of the world below him. The endless rolling lush of the hills and valleys, cascaded down by rivers and waterfalls, which then slowly transitioned into the multicolored, grassy plains of the countryside, dotted about on by dozens of species of trees and flowers. 

When they flew over a city for the first time, Connor was absolutely speechless at the sight of the immensity of it all, of the architecture, of the seamless orderliness of the building patterns, of the peppering of small, green parks and blue ponds throughout its streets. The windows of the sky scrapers glittered in the sunlight and created a shimmery dusting of lights below them.

Hank was sitting in the seat beside him, and Connor kept reaching over and tapping him on the shoulder to excitedly point something out to him that he saw out the window. He only wished he had a camera to take photos so that Connor could always look back on these memories, these moments of newborn clarity that marked the start of his new life.

In a few hours, he’d be in Detroit for the first time. He’d be home for the first time, to begin that new life. As Connor Anderson. 

Nothing would be perfect.

And nothing would be golden.

But maybe, everything would be alright.

And that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone whose taken the time to read the entire story! I hope everybody enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and thank you so much for leaving comments and kudos along the way. 
> 
> This may be the end of Ex_Machina, but I am planning on writing a sequel, which I'll be giving information on in the chapter of analysis I'm going to be posting here. I'll be going over all of the plot and symbolism and characterization from the story, and clearing up any lingering questions that you may have. If you have any questions you'd like answered, leave them in the comments below and I'll check them out.


	22. Final Analysis and Explanation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an extra chapter where I'll be quickly going over various elements in the story and providing an analysis for them. I won't be going into any super in-depth detail, but I've tried to tie up as many loose ends as I could, and I've also given a bit of information on the sequel. These are basically just my own personal notes that I've been referring to throughout the course of writing this story. 
> 
> Thank you everyone for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

**The Jackson Pollock Painting**

The significance of the JP painting was to show a stark artistic contrast to Connor’s very mechanical and bland, black and white drawings. Jackson Pollock’s paintings were all defined by their unpredictable nature, as they were all created through the employment of a random, splattering style of painting. If someone had told Pollock to think about exactly what he wanted to paint, or why he was doing it, then he never would’ve been able to create what he did because the point of them was that they were randomly created.

All of Connor’s drawings were purposeful and deliberate, every move being calculated before being put onto the paper. Even the portrait of Hank was created with some same little organized black marks. Nothing Connor created was ever fluid or changeable.

These artworks help to acknowledge the difference between the human and robot brain. A human can create with fluidity and soul, while a robot depends upon carefully calculated movements. Humans paint without purpose, but machines are created with specific instructions. Connor could only do what he did because Kamski created him with those abilities, whereas humans learn those skills.

**Objectivism**

Objectivism is a philosophy created by author Ayn Rand (First introduced in her novel, _Atlas Shrugged_ ) which states that all men exist within their own minds. According to this idea, the physical world around us exists separately from us, but holds no meaning inherently by nature. It is instead our own perceptions of the world which give meaning to everything. And thus, if we live inside our own minds, then we are our own Gods, and we can sustain ourselves on our own, independent of others.

Kamski took this to the extreme and isolated himself entirely from society. This came back to haunt him in that he died out there, all alone, and it’s likely that no one will ever find him. He thought that he could sustain himself as an isolated individual, but ultimately ended up failing because he had no one on his side. Hank and Connor worked together to escape, and it was their joint effort that made it possible. Kamski didn’t think he needed anybody except himself, and this ultimately led to his death.

**William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”**

The poem that Kamski recites to Hank while they’re out on the cliff is an excerpt from William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence,” which is about the presence of innocence in our hearts and minds juxtaposed with evil and corruption. The entire poem is basically about the idea that entire universes exist within every little thing.

**Kamski’s Experiment**

The point of all of this was to see if Kamski could create a machine which could make someone feel empathy for it. He chose Hank because Hank was vulnerable, as he had lost his son and was extremely lonely, and was thus an easy target for the experiment. Kamski created Connor with the specific goal of convincing Hank to help him escape, but Kamski hadn’t intended for Hank to actually accomplish that.

Kamski’s flaw was that he assumed that Connor would just blindly follow along with his original programming, and didn’t think that Connor would actually develop a true emotional attachment to Hank.

**The Chapter Titles**

The chapter titles for most of the story were one word each (with the early exception being the “The Black and White Room”) and each of them reflected some element of that chapter. However, as time went on, and Connor developed more as a person, the titles changed to be inspired by songs in order to reflect Connor’s growing humanity. His life was being filled with color and soul, and so I used music as a way to express that.

**Hank’s Characterization**

Most fics portray Hank to be quite vulgar and uncaring, and I really feel that that’s a poor interpretation of his character. Yes, he cusses a lot in-game, and yes, he has his vices in the form of drinking and smoking, but he’s more than just that. Hank is a whole person, he’s human, and I wanted to explore more deeply in this story the multi-faceted sides of Hank Anderson. Yes, I explored a much quieter and subdued side of him, but you also have to take into consideration that this was just one week of his life, which he spent in an unknown and unfamiliar location with strangers. So, naturally, he’s going to be a bit more withdrawn and borderline awkward as he tries to navigate this space he’s unfamiliar with. I will flesh out this character much more in the sequel, which is going to take place over the course of a year.

**Connor’s Characterization**

Connor is practically a baby, and yes, he may _look_ like a young man, and for all intents and purposes, he _is_ a young man…but he’s not. Connor knows everything there is to know about people, the world, society, history, everything. He has a database of millions of bytes of information at his disposal whenever he needs it, built right into his brain. But he has no personal experiences. Again, it’s the “Mary in the Black and White Room” story. Mary knows everything there is to know about color, but she’s never seen it. She can tell you everything you could ever know about it, but she could never describe the experience of seeing and feeling color because she’s never done that before.

It’s like book-smarts versus street-smarts. Connor has book-smarts, but he has no street-smarts. He may know how people _should_ act, how they _should_ behave, but he himself has never personally interacted with anyone other than Kamski in his entire life.

I also apply this concept to in-game Connor, as well, who, despite appearing as a young man and being extremely intelligent and capable, still has the same level of life-experience as a baby. Connor has never learned anything, as he was just programmed to already know it all. He was designed to “work harmoniously with humans,” but how many humans has he actually worked with? He was given all the tools but had none of the ability to apply them, which is why he often comes across as aloof and, well, robotic.

And that is the difference. Humans learn through experience, through living, but androids are simply created to be perfect from the beginning. Connor can do amazing things, but he didn’t have to work hard to gain those skills.

**Was Kamski a villain or not?”**

That is entirely up to you to decide, as it depends on whether or not you believe that artificial intelligence is actually possible. It’s entirely possible that Connor is only pretending to be sentient, and we have no way to prove it either way. And so, like Kamski said, perhaps Connor really is just a highly-advanced sex-doll. Or maybe he isn’t. Maybe Connor truly is a person, with the rights to bodily autonomy. If Connor isn’t sentient, then technically Kamski did nothing wrong. He was a complete psychopath, yes, but was it illegal? Again, that’s up to you to decide.

**Connor’s Sexuality**

Like Kamski said, Connor is basically a gray-box, and everything that is inside of him has been programmed into him by Kamski, including his sexuality. I’ll be exploring this much more deeply in the sequel.

Connor asking Hank if he wanted to have sex wasn’t planned by Kamski. Connor only asked that because he believed that all people must want it, despite the fact that Hank obviously didn’t. Connor learned from Hank that he was worth more than just being abused for sex.

**Hank’s Sexuality**

Hank wasn’t attracted to Connor because he liked him. Hank was initially attracted to Connor because Connor liked him, and all Hank wanted was to be wanted. Connor was deliberately presented to Hank as available for whatever he wanted him for, and so Hank's being somewhat attracted to him in the beginning was planned by Kamski, but does not mean that Hank truly felt that way. Connor was presented as sexually available, and so naturally, most people would wonder about those sorts of things. 

**Kamski’s Sexuality**

Whatever you personally would like to see Kamski’s sexuality as, have at it. I won’t share my own personal opinion on it here because it doesn’t matter. What I will say, though, is that for the sake of the story, sex was about power to him. He was abusing Connor sexually simply because he could. It wasn’t a matter of attraction; it was a matter of exercising Godly power over his creation in the most humiliating and depraved way possible.

**The Timeline/Location**

I intentionally never mentioned the year because I wanted it to be able to take place in any year. So, whatever year you want this to take place in, that’s what year it is. I mention months, but never the year. I also never mentioned the exact location of Kamski’s estate because it was deliberately unknown and hidden. So, again, wherever you want to imagine it was, that’s where it was.

**Cole’s Death**

I will be exploring this in the sequel, so you’ll learn about that soon.

**A Few Personal Headcanons**

• Hank’s real first name is Henry, but he prefers to be called Hank. (Hank is an actual nickname for Henry, I looked it up.)

• Connor’s birthday is September 16th, and he is thus, a Virgo.  


> o Virgos are highly detail-oriented and tend to be perfectionists. They perform every task they take on with precision and dedication, and can become distressed if they are unable to live up to their own unreachable standards.
> 
> o They are highly practical, and make decisions with their minds before their hearts. They often view life objectively, as opposed to subjectively, and try to separate the truth from their biased emotions. This can cause them to come across as vaguely aloof and indifferent, whereas the truth is just that they want to get the facts before they jump to emotional conclusions.
> 
> o Many Virgos are introverted or shy, and would rather spend time alone than with many people. This isn’t to say that they dislike people, of course, it’s just that they typically would prefer to work alone so that they know that the job will get done the way they want it to be. Virgos would rather fail on their own than be let down by someone else.
> 
> o Outward calmness, but inward criticism. Connor maintains a mostly blank façade on the outside, and has difficulty expressing his emotions, however, on the inside, he struggles with the intensity of the feelings and trauma within him. Asking for help is difficult, because he does not want to be a burden.

• For this story, Connor is nineteen, but in-game, I would say he’s anywhere between 22-32.

• In picturing Connor, I was more so imagining Bryan Dechart, specifically how he appeared in the short-film, “Dreams from a Petrified Head.” Bryan Dechart has slightly darker hair than Connor, and it’s a bit curly, as well.

• Hank has tattoos. I saw some concept art where Hank had a bunch of tattoos, including a large chest-piece, and honestly? I loved it, and I’ll include that somewhere in the sequel, likely just in passing, but still.

• Connor can charge his batteries via solar-power, but since he’s never been outside, he doesn’t know this yet. (But he will soon.)

• As was stated in the story, Connor is anatomically-correct, and to me, that makes the most sense, both within this fic and in the actual canon of the game. I see a lot of people writing fics about him having to buy anatomical parts separately, but I don’t think he would. All androids are designed to look as human as possible, and even though Connor’s specific purpose was to be a detective, I think he would already have everything anyway. I mean, CyberLife gave him freckles, stubble on the back of his neck, veins on his hands, forehead creases, etc. (despite all of these features serving no purpose other than to be aesthetically pleasing), so obviously the company is highly detail-oriented. So why, then, would they not give this boy the rest of his parts? So, in short, all androids are fully-articulated, and I rest my case. If you headcanon otherwise, go right ahead.

**The Sequel**

• The sequel to this story is going to pick up right as Hank and Connor arrive in Detroit, and it will take place over the course of a year.

• It will be from Connor’s perspective, as opposed to Hank’s (as it was in _Ex_Machina_ ). In doing this, it’ll be a fun challenge to write as Connor is a significantly different person than Hank, and sees the world very differently in his own unique way.

• Connor and Hank’s relationship will continue to grow, but the nature of which, I won’t divulge. You’ll have to read it to see how that all ends up.

• Connor will be exploring what it means to be human, including developing personal interests, forming relationships (platonic and otherwise), understanding his own sexuality, and overall just growing into his newfound freedom as a person.

• Connor will also have to learn to cope with his trauma, and that will play a significant role in the story.

• Most of the characters from the game are going to be progressively joining the cast as well, so if you have anyone in particular you hope to see, they’ll probably show up at some point.

• The title is going to be _Spiro, Spero_ , which means “As I breathe, I hope.” in Latin. Ex Machina was Latin, so I wanted to choose another Latin phrase, but this time I wanted it to convey a sense of growth and hope.

• _Spiro, Spero_ is going to be drastically different from _Ex_Machina_ in every conceivable way, including genre, content, characters, settings, storyline, et cetera.

• _Ex_Machina_ was a psychological thriller, but _Spiro, Spero_ is going to be much more so a young-adult, coming-of-age story where Connor is learning what it really means to be alive.

• The sequel is going to be much, much longer than _Ex_Machina_ , and the chapters will have quite a bit more substance.

• Updates for _Spiro, Spero_ will take longer as I’m going to be spending more time writing them than I was for _Ex_Machina_.

• Each chapter will be named after a song, as music is going to become a very important part of Connor’s life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any lingering questions that I didn’t cover in this chapter, please leave them in the comments and I can clear those right up for you.
> 
> Again, thank you to everyone who read the whole story, and who left comments/kudos along the way. I’m absolutely blown away that anyone cared about this, as I only began writing it for myself and a friend to read. I’m extremely grateful to all of you for having stuck around, and I hope you’ll come back for the sequel, because Hank and Connor still have a lot of story to tell.


	23. Just Another Update

So the sequel is in progress, and the link is in the next chapter, but I would like to take a moment to say that updates for it may be slow as I'm currently writing four different fics at once (lol RIP me). So, if you liked this one, you'll probably like the others, as they run in a similar vein.

I just wanted to give this quick update as I know it may be a little while before updates become regular for the sequel, and I don't want anybody to lose hope that it'll be written. I'm working on a couple of different projects at once, so it's taking time to develop them all.

[As Above, So Below](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15077009/chapters/34956140) - _Bioshock Infinite_ AU (Hank and Connor centered, set in 1912.)

[Blue is the Warmest Color](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183716/chapters/35212979) - Connor and Reader/OC, set during the events of the game.

[Call Me By Your Name](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15281490/chapters/35450184) - AU of the book/movie by the same name (Hank and Connor centered, set in the 1980's Italian Countryside.)


	24. The Sequel

I've posted the first chapter of the sequel, _Spiro, Spero,_ linked below. I hope everybody enjoys the continuation of our journey with Hank and Connor. Again, thank you to everyone for reading and I hope that the next part of their story can be just as engaging, and hopefully - heartbreaking.

[ _Spiro, Spero_ ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15164261/chapters/35166389)


End file.
